


I've Not Been Feeling Quite Like Myself

by akdaley



Series: Kylo Ren and Cousin Joris Conquer the Galaxy [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Freedom, Jedi Training, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren Redemption, Original Character(s), POV Kylo Ren, Plotty, Rey Needs A Hug, Slavery, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-03-03 05:04:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 37
Words: 94,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13334088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akdaley/pseuds/akdaley
Summary: Kylo Ren changes his life, by way of a dream, some chance meetings, First Order betrayals, indentured servitude, acts of kindness, training with Rey, a lot of feelings, some deep dark angst, and a few conversations with dead people. He also collects berries. Really. At least, until the moment he realises who he really is...A plot-heavy tale of not killing people and what it means to be a Jedi after all. COMPLETE!!!!





	1. Chapter 1

Kylo Ren was having a problem with his lightsaber.

It wasn’t exactly anything he could pin down, this problem. There was nothing wrong with the way the fine blade cut through skin and bone. There was nothing wrong with the sizzle of pain it could elicit, on his command, against the flesh of his opponents. It wasn’t in the way it worked, the speed of its response to his fingers. It wasn’t a manufacturing fault, as such.

 It was more in the way that, every once in a while, he seemed to catch in showing a certain colour that had not been there before, a lightening of its hue into a rather paler red. But when he looked at it again, the hue had vanished and it looked the same as it ever had.

It was also the way it felt to hold it. There were times when he didn’t seem to be quite able to stabilise the connection. The force moved through him, through the lightsaber, and had always answered to him. It had felt natural and solid in his hand. Now, it felt sometimes as if it was almost not quite his own saber. He hadn’t slipped or hesitated in what he had to do, but there had been moments when he had reached out for it and it just didn’t feel right.

He had no one to ask about it. Perhaps that was what was driving him crazy. He didn’t have a Master. Skywalker was gone to the light, and he hadn’t been his Master for a long time anyway. What had Skywalker, the fucking rat bastard that he was, ever said about lightsaber colours and feel?

 _The lightsaber is nothing_ , he had said, once long ago when Kylo hadn’t existed. _A blade, or an idea of a blade. It is only the force that makes a blade. A Jedi can kill with a blade of grass, heal with the swoop of a bird’s wing. Weapon, not weapon. The intention is both itself and is the idea of itself._

Which was enigmatic and useless and didn’t help at all. 

Kylo had also killed Snoke, who might have known but who might just as well have killed him for asking, depending on the day.  So that ruled him out. What would have said?

_If you can’t feel the power with this lighsaber, perhaps we must find you another. Power is absolute. This blade is corrupted by your weakness, Kylo Ren. It feels it against your very fingers. Must I punish this too –_

Yeah, very helpful as well. Kylo was sure his former Supreme Leader would have turned it all back to what a failure he was. Well, too bad for him that he was dead.

And the Jedi order was finished, so he could hardly talk to Master Yoda or whoever there might once have been. Besides which, he wasn’t a Jedi. He was a Sith.

Or something. The Sith order were effectively finished too. He was the last Sith, and he wasn’t a Sith, so where that put all the grand mess of good and evil in the cosmic order, he really wasn’t sure. Nowhere or somewhere.

Actually, Kylo Ren was having quite a lot of problems, if he was honest with himself, which he seldom was.

It wasn’t only the lightsaber, was it?

It was the way that he kept having flashes of the _something else_ that had dogged his footsteps for as long as he could remember.

There had always been him, and alongside that self had always been another less formed but no less present kind of other self, shadowing, waiting, biding time, always there. It was the whisper he heard at night. It was there in the steady quiet of a world at sleep, like a ringing in his ears.

Sibilant and slow, he had heard the whispers through his childhood. _You’re not like this. This isn’t you. You’re not like this._ It was in urges he felt to do things that he couldn’t explain, didn’t want to explain. He stole things, and he didn’t need the things he stole. He hurt other children, and he didn’t need to hurt them.  He lied, and the truth would have been just as good.

He did bad things in a mostly good world. He was smart and bored, and he did things that he couldn't explain doing.

 _You’re not like this_.  
  
Now, he was the supreme leader and he had thought that would be the end of the voice.If anyone in the galaxy was evil through to the bone, it was him. He had killed, would kill again. He had planned the slaughter of his mother, even if it had failed. He had murdered his father in cold, calm blood. He ordered destruction. He used the Force to torture, to expel life, to cause pain. He was good at it.

It felt right.

But there it was again, a voice set against that rightness, but this time it was sharper, more brittle. It didn’t lure. It hurt, it snapped at him, a twinge of pain rather than attraction.

 _You’re not like this_. _You’re disgusting. This is disgusting._

Ever since he’d killed Snoke, it had been there, sharp and anxious to be heard. It had been four months now that he had held the command position, and the voice was getting more clamorous. It was getting harder to tune it out. What was it? He didn’t know the voice. It was an ancient memory, it was the voice of a dead man. It wasn’t welcome.

He missed the other voice. That one had been soft, wheedling him.

_You’re special, you’re important. This isn’t you. This isn’t what someone as important as you is meant to do, is it?_

Now it was so sharp and unforgiving.

_Stop doing this. Stop this, it's awful. You're disgusting._

Two days ago, right there in the throne room, he had found himself meditating the Jedi form he had learned when he was a novice with Skywalker, a small boy. He didn’t know why he had done it. The voice had been so insistent.

It wasn’t as if he was in the middle of anything so spectacular or unusual, even. He had received a progress report from Hux. No survivors on the attack on the base on Romulus 8, a satisfactory outcome of a simple bombing.

‘How many were estimated to have been killed?’ he had asked Hux.

‘At least 23,000, my Lord,’ Hux had replied. ‘Every man, woman and child on the base. There can be no possible survivors.’

‘Very good,’ he had said. ‘You may go.’

And then Hux had gone, and Kylo had been alone in the throne room, and he’d started to have this –

What the hell was it?

An idea that he didn’t really like that 23,000 people were dead. Or that he _shouldn’t_ like it, or something like that. That the deaths were meaningless and even worse –

He had some memory of Romulus 8, something old and distant from the life of Ben Solo. He had been there on a trip with Han Solo, who had been dropping off (or stealing, or smuggling) goods from the base.

Ben had been young, maybe seven, and his father had sat him down on a crate in an old-fashioned looking watering hole, and said _be good_ , and Ben had said, _I am good, I’m full of Light, that’s what Uncle Luke says_ and his dad had said, laughing, _Uncle Luke’s full of crap, I mean it, don’t wander off kid. That’s what be good means today. Stay put_.

And so Ben had sat on the crate, and the little old bartender, a man who looked funny with his big green eyes and pink fluffy hair, had showed him how to make a cut-out drawing of the moons of Romulus 8, which were beautiful and luminous, and dad had taken so long to get back –

And now, 23,000 people on Romulus 8 were dead.

 _Use the Force_ , the voice had said. _Use the Force to help you understand. If you can, you piece of shit._

 It was supposed to clear your head, to help you feel the growth of the world around you, and to understand that you yourself were growing as a plant, a tree, a bird, a fish. All things grew and all things died. That was the lesson, and you yourself were a part of those things. It was a simple meditation, for young students.

He didn't dare do anything more complicated. It had been a while.

Somehow it had just seemed right to do it, though, there in that throne room. It was an urge. Kylo Ren was very poor at suppressing his urges, which was a side effect of his training in releasing his urges in the form of death and destruction. So, almost as if he weren't in his own body, he crossed his legs and sat, shook himself out of the forms that began the meditation.

He had found himself breathing in Light. It was still there, everywhere, waiting. He took it into his throat, that Light, and let it flood his body. It felt sick and sharp, and difficult. It was like eating something foul, something that your body clenched violently against –

He spat it out, and stopped the meditation.

His question to himself was – what the fuck was he doing breathing in Light in the throne room of the Supreme Leader (him) anyway, because of a base on Romulus 8 that he had never been to, and which didn’t matter at all?

It really wasn’t just the lightsaber. Kylo Ren was sick.


	2. Dreamlands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren is dreaming

 

He falls into a dark sleep. He can’t remember how he got to the place he’s in. Something is wrong. He’s in the throne room, just finished eating a meal brought to him by an acolyte. It had an after-taste of ash, and now he’s falling into a sleep that he can’t quite seem to –

Rey is there, face strained with exertion. She is staring at a fluttering bird that sits opposite her in a white room, a vast space of light and glass. 

Go away, she says, turning to him. She looks young and whole, and the light shines through her.

What are you doing anyway? His voice has no animosity. What are you trying to do?

I can’t stop movement, she said. I can lift things. I can put things down. But I can’t stop things from moving towards me or my friends.

Things like bullets, he said, grim half-smile. Bullets makes him think of something, but he can’t remember what it is.

Things like bullets.

Why can’t you do this? he said. He must have taught you. You were his student. This is one of the first lessons.

Rey held her body taut and tense.  She wouldn’t be laughed at. She wouldn’t be dismissed.

He didn’t have a chance to teach me everything, she said. We didn’t have long together. He never finished all that he wanted to do. He had other problems.

He finished this lesson with me when I was nine, Kylo said.

And look what good that did.

He didn’t answer back. He just looked at her, like a distant storm about to break.

Do you even remember it? She asked. After everything. Do you know how to do anything in the Light?

He paused, slow and measured.

I still remember, he said. I remember all of it.

But you can’t do it? Won’t?

Can’t. Kylo shrugged. I’m not one with the Light.  
  
Understatement, she said.  
  
There was something that might have been an attempt at a smile. His lip moved, ugly and scarred. It repulsed her.

Maybe I can still show you.  
  
I don’t trust you.  
  
You don’t have to trust me.  You just have to listen.

How will I know what you’re teaching me isn’t Dark? You wanted to take me over to your side.

If you can’t tell the difference between the Dark and the Light, he said, you have bigger problems than not being able to move things with your mind.

I can tell the difference.  
  
So let me teach you.  
  
The Supreme Leader of darkness is going to teach me Jedi tricks?  
  
The Supreme Leader of darkness, he repeated, and this time she could feel a strain of something that would have once been laughter in him, is going to teach you Jedi tricks.

Will it hurt you?  
  
He shrugged. Possibly.

Good.  
  
You might want to let go of your vengeance, he said dryly. It’s not at one with the Light.

Fuck you. Just teach me.  
  
He moved towards her, and he was already with her. In dreams, movement and destination can be the same thing.  
  
You have to feel the force, he said.  
  
She closed her eyes. I feel it. She could feel him too, a swirling mass of dark and red, blood, steel, and the rawness of pain, the unhealed wounds of torture, the laughter of the torturer.

Don’t think about me, he said. It’s just the murder. It’s nothing you have to think about.  
  
Reassuring, she said. Teach me how to walk in the Light some more.

Feel the force, he repeated. Feel it in the air, feel how the air moves

She felt it. The air seemed still and thick. There was no wind where they were. There was no sky. The dreamlands stretched out, silent and flat.

It doesn’t move, she said.

Kylo Ren laughed.

It doesn’t move, he repeated. Of course it moves. You’re looking for the wrong thing.

There’s no wind here.  
  
Wind isn’t the way the air moves. That’s a child’s idea. Think about how the galaxy was made. All of this, being born. A single radiant point of heat, exploding outwards.  Birth and death.

She thought about it. She could feel the heat, the impossible white burning of it. Movement of everything into everything.

The air moved. She gasped. All of it was in motion. Birth, death, atom to atom, chain to chain. It was all alive with the movement towards an end and a beginning and an end and a beginning.

I just saw it. Everything’s moving.

It always was, he said.  I’m going to throw a sword at you now.  You might want to get ready to duck.

What?

He threw something at her, hard and fast. She felt it moving, all within that birth and death and everything. A single movement. She felt the pain of it, the expectant death. It hurt. It made a stain on the world.

The sword was thick with blood. In it, she could see the ending of death, with no beginning to counter it. Just death. It hurt. It bled against the balance of everything.

She thought about it, felt its trajectory. It seemed to be slow, trailing through sticky air. Time was only a toy the gods made to amuse their children. It was nothing at all.

Slow it down, he said. Stop it.

She did. She felt the way the sword fell, and the pain around it fell too. A sharp clunk.

Good, he said.

He was breathing heavily, she noticed.

What’s wrong with you? Can’t you throw a sword these days?  
  
It’s the Light, he said. I’ve killed people with that sword. I could feel them.  
  
Perhaps you shouldn’t have killed them then, she said. Thanks for the lesson.

  
She let herself fade out of the vision and he was alone.

He slept poorly. He didn’t sleep at all. Which was it? He didn’t know. Where was he, anyway? It wasn’t a place he knew. He had a feeling as if he were dreaming, and perhaps he was, but perhaps it was also something more.

He kept thinking about the sword.

The way she saw the universe. She saw a sword full of unspilled blood, waiting and dangerous. She saw a rupture in the Force, through the violence of a spear.

He’d seen it too, and he couldn’t stop now.

He used to think swords were ways of holding the Force in balance.

Time passed like the sea moving, or the grass waving in the fields. It undulated, and it was never sure if it was really moving at all.

Then he could feel the energy of it, the lingering form and shape. It was all Light, eddying around a single point. It was like lines that looked like nothing, until you angled your head and saw that it was the shape of your blood.

The form raised a spectral non-eyebrow at him.

Hello uncle, he said. Aren’t you supposed to be dead?

Kid, the voice said. You don’t know a thing.

What am I supposed to know?

He tried to make his voice was full of the rage and hatred of Kylo Ren. Luke just laughed.

Try harder, he said. Nephew. Ben.

He disappeared in a flicker of Light.

The next time, Luke was more substantial. He looked like himself, and Kylo told him so.

You’re just seeing me better, Luke said, which was infuriating.

You’re Light, Kylo said. He was in his stupid Throne Room, encased in darkness and death, or at least he thought he was. I’m not supposed to see you at all.

And I’m a Wookie, Luke said sardonically. You’ve got Light all around you.

So you used to tell me.

I’m telling you again, his old Master said. Maybe you’ll listen this time.

Maybe I won’t.

Ben, Luke said, and he sounded like thirty years ago when things were simpler and safer. Don’t you think it’s time to grow up? What can all this give you that you didn’t already have anyway?

He wasn’t even angry. He should have been. He should have killed him. Force choked the Light out of the room and drowned his Uncle with it. Should have murdered, killed, maimed. Anything to bleed the Light out.

Dreams don’t work like that. Kylo was pretty sure this was a dream.  

Maybe, he said. I don’t know how.

Luke flickered brightly.

Want some advice?

Not really.

Too bad. Your father’s coming next. Learn how to say sorry.

He faded out of view, and Kylo could do nothing but wait.

It felt like days before his father finally showed up, but who knows how time had moved. The shadows chased up and down the wall. The room shifted and chased after a little girl, a woman running up and down a ship. Rey.

He saw her practising the Jedi trick he taught her. She stopped birds in midair and sent them winging the other direction. Her face was full of concentration and Light. He saw her growing up, lonely, scared. She was a kernel of a person, hidden and locked away inside the body of another life. She glowed from her cage. The desert wind caught in her hair, and inside her in that deep kernel of truth, she waited to be free.

She was an adult. He saw her, chasing after Light and Dark and herself.

Then he came. He looked the same as he had when he died. Roguish, complicated, and sad.

Hey kiddo, he said.

Kylo didn’t answer. He didn’t know what was supposed to say.

No hug?

I killed you, he said, the words stinging his tongue. No hug.

Han’s face didn’t falter. He looked wryly amused.

it was my time, kid. Aren’t you Force-sensitives supposed to know about that stuff? It was my time. If you hadn’t killed me, it would have been Snoke or a trooper bastard, or a stray bit of metal from a stranger’s gun. These things have their time.

He reaches out to Kylo, as if it wants to touch him but he doesn’t dare.

I’m glad your face was the last I saw. Better yours than anyone else’s.

 I killed you.

Yeah. His father’s face did now soften into a smile. You might want to work on some stuff.

Chewie shot me.

You deserved it.

I deserved it, he agreed. I deserved worse.

Hey. Han winked at him. Enough of the serious stuff. Want to play a round with me, kid?

What?  
  
Poker. The after life’s boring as shit. This might be my last chance to get a good game in.

I don’t have any cards.

And you call yourself my son?

The silence lingered around that remark. Kylo felt the pain of it.

Well, Han deadpanned. Guess you don’t. Ren. What’s your other name again? Kyro? Kyres? It’s hard to keep facts straight where I am. It all gets so blurred. Like the worst hangover you’ve never had.

Kylo, he said stiffly.

Kriff, you picked a stupid name. What did you do that for?  
  
I don’t know.

 Improbable, amazing, but he finds himself smiling at his father. It doesn’t hurt. He remembers how people do this.

We could play holochess, he suggests. I’ve got a set.

As long as the figures aren’t Siths or writhing serpents or whatever the Kylo Rens of this world play with. Kylo Ren. Kriff alive.

His father’s eyes are twinkling.

I’m not that bad. I still have taste.

Matter of opinion, Han said. Everything you own is red or black. Do girls dig the bad boy stuff? Is that why you do it?

Not this. This is just normal.

Kid, nothing you’ve ever done is normal. He pauses for a moment. Except maybe the time you scratched a picture into the wall of the Falcon and said the Force made you do it. Should have maybe known then how all this was gonna go…

Don’t.

Don’t what? Han’s eyes are still smiling. Gonna Force choke me if I tease you? I’m dead anyway.

I know.

He doesn’t cry, doesn’t remember how, but he thinks about it.

Let’s just play that game.

So they play, and in the dream, he can’t be sure how long it takes. Hours, days, minutes, seconds. Time is mist. Time is nothing to a dying Supreme Leader who teaches Jedi tricks.

After the tenth, twentieth, a thousandth match, he loses again, and his father guffaws.

‘Can’t beat an old dog,’ he says. He slaps Kylo’s shoulder, and it feels so real, the touch of his fingers. Just lke on a cheek. They’ve talked, and laughed, and played and it’s been as if the years haven’t ever existed.

Then falling, white noise, the abyss, the end of everything.

Hey, Han says. It was good to see you kid. Don’t get lost in all that old stuff.

It’s not that old.

Time’s just a trick, Han says. Old, new. It’s always now and it’s always then, and it’s always tomorrow. Luke used to spin that bullshit. I never got it until I died.

I wish it were _then_. That I could go back. I shouldn’t have –

Yeah, Han says, and his voice sounds pretty final. Gotta be honest that I wish you hadn’t. There was stuff I wanted to do. But hey kid, hug your mother for me sometime, while you’re still in your body. I miss her.

Some time. Some time I will.

Stop killing people, his dad says. I don’t care what you do, Solo. Don’t care if you go meditate on an island like your uncle, run a whorehouse, marry some little scavenger girl you’re sweet on, go full on Jedi, give it all up and sharp cards for money. I don’t care. Just don’t kill people, kid. I’m sick of watching it.

Yeah, Kylo says, and he thinks he suddenly understands all this.

I’m dying, aren’t I? he says. The word sounds improbable. On the ship, I mean.

Han shrugs.

Dying and living is Jedi stuff, he says. You’re still a Jedi. You figure it out.

I’m not a Jedi.

Sure you are.  Han pulls him into a hug, and it feels just right. You think you spent years on an island going mad with boredom for nothing? You’ve just gotta find a way to be me and your mother at the same time. No wonder you got confused.

Don’t forgive me, Kylo says, and he remembers how to cry.

He cries into his dad’s shirt, and it smells like it did when he was little, and Dad was the ruler of the universe, because Dad could fly the Falcon and do card tricks.

Don’t forgive me.

If I don’t forgive you, then what? The universe is a bit shittier and you’re a bit worse off, and I’m still dead anyway. No point to any of it. 

His dad takes him by the shoulders and looks him direct in the eyes.

I love you kid, he says. Forget about it. I forgive you. Make it right.

Kylo can see that his father’s shape is fading out, and he knows, through the Force or through his own self, that this is the last time he’ll ever see him. He never deserved this second chance, but now he has it, he wants to hold on.

See you around, Han says. I’m always around. I love you.

I’m sorry, Kylo says, although whether he says it in his head or out loud, he doesn’t know.

And he wakes up, gasping, weak, sick to the bone, and staring at the ceiling of the dark Throne Room, poison running through every inch of his blood.  In his head, he can dimly hear the voice of his uncle.

There’s only her left, Luke says. Good luck if you try to do it on your own. Be good, kid.

Then there’s a great rush of pain and toxin and fear, and Kylo Ren remembers, for the first time in decades, that he was never that good at healing with the force.

 

_  
_

 

  

 

  


	3. Still Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren is dying

He’s ten years old and Luke is teaching them healing with the Force.

 _Feel the connectness in every bone_ , Luke says. Ben is hardly even listening. 

_This is boring, Uncle! The bones are so connected it’s obvious. This is for the other children, not for me._

_It’s for you too, Ben. If you don’t know how to do something, you have to learn it too._

_I know how! I just think it’s stupid._

Luke had sighed and let Ben drift to the side of the group, content to let the battle go.

His uncle had always let the battles go in training. At the time, Kylo had thought it was because he was special and he really didn’t need to learn the things he thought he already knew.

Now he looks back, and he realises it’s because Luke thought in time he’d come around to reason and choose to learn for himself, and Luke was content to wait for that. His uncle could never have been accused of being pushy.

Well, a few years later he had slaughtered the other trainees who had been with him that day. He hadn’t come around to reason, and now he didn’t know how to heal himself properly.

It was likewise unsurprising that Snoke hadn’t put much stock in the trade of self-care and compassion for the suffering of others. Snoke knew how to stop blood flowing and now to manipulate pain – and Kylo knew that too, more or less. He could shift pain in his body from one place to another, and he could _detect_ pain, mostly in his victims.

He just couldn’t do anything about it.

What could he do?

He could slow movement, he thought. The dream with Rey (if it had been a dream) reminded him that he could speed and slow things. Jedis and Sith both liked being able to stop bullets, albeit for sometimes different reasons.

So he meditated on the poison that was spreading through his body, visualised it. He found it, unwinding a skein of dark yellow sickness into his blood – and he slowed it. He didn’t know exactly how to _remove it_ without removing his own blood from his body, but he could at least stop it where it was. His limited understanding of healing still suggested that was probably a good idea.

 He felt the poison slow. It was sticky now, the stuff of taffy and thickness. It was no longer flooding into him. It was still.

The pain was still agonising. He didn’t know what it was, but it was clear that it did something to his vital organs. He tried to shift the pain away, but it was already nearly everywhere, so there was nowhere to move it to. He settled for moving some of it to one of his toes – the fourth of his left foot. He didn’t need that toe, but he needed his lungs.

Light, he thought. You’ve had a fucking vision of Light and Being and Everythingness. What would someone who walks in the Light do about this? Since it is possible that you are now going to be this person again.

They wouldn’t be friendless and alone in a throne room on a destroyer in the first place, and certainly not having been poisoned by a presumed ally, another voice in his head answered.

People in the Light don’t do friendlessness. They’re like dogs. They naturally attract and seek out other dogs. They enjoy groups of highly complex and self-involved arse sniffing.  
  
He could feel the effort it was taking to slow the poison start to fade.  
  
Nasty sarcastic comments don’t go well with attempted Jedi poison-balancing, he concluded.

Okay, not dogs, he thought. He tried to keep the image of his father, the way it had felt to hug him, in his mind. It helped. He could feel something in that memory that was the opposite of alone, and whatever that thing was, he needed it very urgently right now.

 They’re good people, he thought. Good beings are attracted to each other, because they can show their goodness by caring for each other. You can’t build anything real without other people on your team to build it for and with.

 _A Jedi is a shield, not a sword,_ Luke had said. _The greatest strength that any of you will ever know is the ability to save another life. Saving your own is immaterial. That is the first rule of healing._

Kriff fuck.

He was still dying, but he had a few more minutes. He couldn’t get up from the floor. Where was the poisoner? Presumably they were waiting until he was dead to avoid any incidents during the dying process.

Incidents such as him forcefully choking the life out of them.

No, no time. Dad, Uncle, Mother. Rey.

_Rey._

The little scavenger. The last Jedi. The girl he’d held the hand of once, who smelled like nutmeg and cinnamon, and whose eyes burned. The girl he saw in his dreams, who could walk in and out of his life at will.

 _Rey,_ he thought. _Rey._

He didn’t know if he could talk to her, if she would even listen. He hadn’t seen her since the door of her spacecraft had slammed shut on him. Only in his dreams, except sometimes they were her dreams too.

 _Rey_ , he thought again, and he tried to meditate on the thought until it became bigger than him, than the throne room, than the ship, than the star system. It had to tendril out everywhere to find her.

_Rey._

After a heart-beat, an infinity of time to the dying, she answered, her voice hard and closed to him.

_Stay away from me, Ren._

Whatever had happened in his mind, his teaching her, clearly hadn’t happened to her yet. Perhaps it would happen, or it could have happened. He wasn’t sure. It hadn’t been a dream, not like the normal ones.

All those things had been real things. That much he knew. They just hadn’t necessarily happened.

 _I’m sorry,_ he said to Rey, to the universe, to anyone he could think of. That was what Uncle Luke had told him to do.

Her voice was still there. He breathed, and his body hurt with the breath of it.

_It’ll take more than sorry._

_I want it to take more_ , he said.

What was it that dad had said to him?

_I’m still a Jedi. I didn’t train for years for nothing. Rey, I want – you’re the last. I’m going to die soon. You’re going to be the last. You’ll never get those birds to move without my help. There’s no one left to teach anything._

There was a pause.

_How do you know about the birds? Are you watching me?_

_No,_ he said. _I’m dying and my dad thinks I’ve got a stupid name and I have, and I killed him._

He was delirious, he assumed. It was difficult, talking to her, and keeping the poison steady, and all the while he was trying to breathe in and out Light, which was difficult in a different way, although now it felt more like vinegar and less like despair, and he knew he had to keep doing it or he’d be dead.

 _Your dad_ , she said, and she sounded incredulous. _You sound like a little kid. The last time I saw you, you asked me to be your empress._

 _Help me,_ he said, because the end was coming, and to be sure all endings were also beginnings, and in the karmic scheme of things, death was nothing but a simple rearrangement of Being and Form, but it was also his end – and he wasn’t ready, and he wasn’t really a Jedi, just a Supreme Leader. He didn’t want to be dead.

 _It’s not my time,_ he said. _One day it will be, but this isn’t it. Help me. Use the Force._

 _I don’t even know how,_ she said. _You tried to kill every single one of us._

 _Help me_ , he said.

A single word, rough and plain. A lifeboat, an oasis.

_How?_


	4. Rey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey's perspective.

 

 

She steps into his world with such ease. She can see him, can feel his breathe, light against her skin. He has strength that makes her think of a dam. Something stoppered, powerful, endless – held at bay, but not safe. Never safe. 

For all that, he doesn’t look good. He’s pale and gasping. He’s on the floor, wheezing for breath. Where are they? She looks around and it’s nearly the same as the last room she saw with him, except it’s him on the throne, not Snoke.

His eyes meet hers, and they’re too much like Han Solo's eyes.  

 _I don’t know how to help_ , she says.

 _The Force_ , he says.

 He’s got Light in him, like Master Luke used to have. It’s a shadow around him. He’s metal at sunrise.

Who is he?

 _I don’t know enough_ , she says.

 _Blood_ , he says. _It’s about blood._

 _Who are you?_ she thinks, except thinking is the same as saying, so so she says it too.

 _The Supreme Leader of Darkness who’s going to teach you Jedi tricks_ , he says and he looks like he might be trying to smile.

He is delirious, that much is obvious.

_Hasn't the First Order got healing teams? Someone to come here? Not that I necessarily want you to live._

_It has to be the Force. I should already be dead. There’s no time._

She lets her hand run on his skin, and he shudders. He is warm, but when she looks at him with the Force she sees cold, a frozen ocean, unreachable. Dying looks like this, she thinks.

 _You already know how_ , he says. _The fact you don’t remember it doesn’t matter. You already know._

He isn’t talking out loud, but only in her head. She isn’t even there. This is the strangest experience she's ever had, and she's had quite some.

She looks for the poison. It is yellow, thick and sickly. It congeals everywhere. It spreads and runs down and it _hurts_.

Why is there so much of it in one of his toes, she wonders.

 _I put it there_ , he answers. 

She’s practical. She’s a pilot, an engineer, a maker, a doer.

Poison is only a compound. It’s made of harmless things, natural things. Earth things. Even things from a laboratory have earth in there somewhere, plastic from the deep earth oil, artificial compounds that, once upon a time, were sand and dust and stone.

Compounds can be altered.

The Force guides her hand. The poison is only one particular arrangement of elements

She imagines rearranging them. They can still be balanced, so easily. She imagines them moving into a different form.

Kylo  Ren screams.

Not that way, he gasps.

 _Antidote_.

She knows that word from Jakku. There were sand serpents there that rasped and whirred. If they stung you, you had eleven hours, they said. Eleven hours to trade four portions for your life, for the antidote you could buy, if you were rich enough.

Of course, four portions traded meant you’d probably die anyway from hunger or dehydration soon enough. So she didn’t put much faith in antidotes. They seemed to only be a different way of dying, in the end.

 _What’s an antidote_ , she asked him. _What does it mean?_

 _Opposite force_ , he says, and his voice sounds further away.  He must be so strong, she thinks. He is holding on against certain death.

Master Luke told her something once. The opposite of dying isn’t living. The opposite of dying and living both is _nothing_.

Nothing.

She puts her hands back on him. She thinks about nothing, as an idea. Space, the way that it isn't really life or death, but rather something that’s between both. Full of movement and matter, but not alive. Not dead, either.

Galaxies reaching out. She tries to imagine them, meditating, and in her mind she sets them against the poison.

He keeps screaming. He’s getting colder and more remote. He’s disappearing. She stops imagining galaxies.

 _Need warmth_ , he thinks. _So cold._

She doesn’t know what to do. She isn’t a Jedi. She had six days of training, in her whole life. Her Master is dead. Her enemy is dying, and she’s running her hands on his skin, and she can’t save him.

 _Good to see you son_ , he thinks, which she doesn’t understand, because she isn’t his son and he killed his father.

She thinks about Han. What would have wanted from all this? Would have been glad of the vengeance of it, glad to see his son die?

Han wasn’t like that. He was a good guy. Not like Leia and Luke. Not pure, not otherworldly in his convictions. He lied and cheated and he knew what a hangover felt like. He knew how to trade and fast-talk and run a party – but he was a good guy. She had really liked Han.

 _Yes_ , Kylo said in her head. _Do that. It helped. Do that._

She thinks about Han, and how it had felt to travel with him. The way he had offered her a job, and she’d half thought about it, dashing around the galaxy with a good-hearted smuggler. The thought made her smile.

 _Do more_ , he says.

Rey is getting to the heart of this, she thinks.  It’s not about opposites at all. He gave her the wrong answer.

 It’s about balance. Poison, death. Connection, life.

She imagines all the kinds of life that she knows. Things that have amused her. Stories that she overheard on Jakku, things that Poe has told her about his exploits. Rose’s anecdotes about discovering Finn trying to escape. Their adventures, their friendship. She thinks about Kylo Ren himself. How their hands had touched across lonelinesses, and how warm it had been.

She is touching him now. She lets her fingers luxuriate on his skin. Slow, steady movements. He is warming, and his breathing is steadying. She can feel him, returning towards her.

Then, with a gasp, she is gone. The solar lights of the airco blink on and off in the darkness. The whir of the ship below her, the metal of her bunk bed, the springs of the mattress. Finn is snoring above her, for all the world a regular night. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo wakes up from his fever, and he's confused as h-e-double lightsabers.

Kylo wakes up on the ground. Under him, the steady hum of the ship’s floor, the feeling of the coldness of the metallic covering. He feels foggy, as if he has been asleep too long. It takes him a second or two to process the sensations, the visual information that is coming through his open but uncomprehending eyes.

The floor is certainly there. He establishes that with relative certainty. Above him, the ship’s ceiling with its fluorescent lights. He is in the Throne Room, and by the sounds around him, he is alone.  

Why is he lying on the floor? He blinks rapidly. Is he in pain? Not that he can sense. Experimentally, he moves his left hand. It lifts just as it should.

Standing up, he feels a rush of blood as if he were injured. He doesn’t _feel_ injured. He isn’t demonstrably injured either, although he feels strange. Faint, weak, somehow not quite present in the way he is normally present in his body. He runs a hand over his face, and the skin feels the same as it ever did.

He checks the Chronometer. It is 03:02, which doesn’t make sense because it was 19:00 when he ate, and that was just a few minutes ago. He has a distinct memory of having eaten. The underling came in to serve food. He can vaguely picture a face, footsteps, a plate. Something that tasted the same as always.

He checks the chronometer again, and it is 03:03. He reaches out with the Force, assessing the situation on board. He can feel sleep, drifting around the edges of his periphery. The senior staff are at rest. Clearly it _is_ night. There are the grunts on patrol, but that never changes. Their witlessness, their small jokes and their pettiness, lap at his mind and he dismisses them. Dimly, he scours his consciousness for anything to help him to understand what has happened, but his mind is an alarming blank.

Eight hours have disappeared.

He begins to experience an unsettling wave of what he remembers as panic; a feeling he has not experienced since Snoke died. He tries to look back, visualising exactly the meal he had eaten. He can’t access the memory, not precisely. He has good mental recall, but in this case, there’s nothing there to find. He ate something, and then …

Then he was here, and there’s no in-between. It is frightening. Time has disappeared.

Kylo licks his tongue around his lips, feeling their shape and texture. They feel cracked and desiccated, as if he is parched. Why are they so dry? He drank just a few minutes before. Hastily, he takes some water from the side of the room.

03:04.

How did he get here? The water is reviving him now, and he is conscious of his own panic, his animalistic sense of fear and distress. He can put that behind him. If he has been trained to do anything, it is that. It used to strike him as amusing that the only thing his bastard Uncle and Snoke ever agreed on was that feelings were nothing but a temporary inconvenience to a true user of the Force; things to be put away, to be locked down into far-flung corners of your mind.

Meditating on the floor of his room, he lets the waves of panic lap against the shore. He observes the way they make his body feel. The tension in his shoulders, released. The tightness in his throat, released. The way his jaw is tight, released. He observes dispassionately a man in maturity, a dark-haired and tall man, sitting on the floor of a room in a spaceship, breathing in and out. The man seems to have a shadow around him, but Kylo is used to that impression of himself. It’s only his former self’s opinion of his present. It doesn’t have to mean anything, unless he chooses for it to do so.  The man looks imposing, he thinks, as he should. This is a leader, someone powerful and strong.

The fear is pushed away in dispassionate reflection of his own life. He is a powerful man, breathing in and out, sitting at the foot of his vast and spiralling empire that takes in world after world. He is a strong man. He leads armies, he can kill with a wave of his hand. He has a purpose, which is to further the goals of the First Order, and in that purpose is his truest self.

He has no other self.

The visualisation steadies him. Lost time can be re-found. Wherever he was, whatever was happening to him, he remains the same man as he was before. Time simply moved without his presence, for a short moment. He was still here, just asleep.

Out of the meditation, he lets his attention direct around the room. Everything here is so familiar. He is the Supreme Leader, and his decisions are absolute. This room was chosen by himself, to replace the one Snoke had preferred. He has had it furnished to his preferences: simple, clean and without ceremony. Behind the main chamber are his private quarters, and it is to those that he now moves.

Has anyone disturbed him in those eight hours, he wonders? If anyone has seen him unconscious, has witnessed this humiliation, he must remove that person, to ensure their silence. Weakness, especially of the physical kind, is unpermitted in a leader. He trades on his strength. He knows that he looks brutal. Tall, strong, dark and silent. He cultivates a look that matches his intent towards power.

But surely no one has seen him. The hours after dinner are quieter in deference to something that approaches a normal working day, and since he became the ruler, he has been increasingly less disturbed outside of the times between 06:00 and 19:00. He summons people to him. They do not come uninvited, not without urgent reason or a death-wish, anyway.  Since Romulus 8, there have been few urgencies to report upon, and Hux himself observes a normal working pattern.

No, no one will have come.

He sighs as he sits on his simple bed, content that he has not been exposed. What next, he wonders. The meditation has helped, but it hasn’t cleared the fog, the vague but insistent sense of wrongness that stands in the place of the time he should remember but cannot. He isn’t tired. It isn’t that, exactly. He just doesn’t know what happened, and he dislikes uncertainty.

Still, now he is the leader, he does as he wishes. Snoke can have no say over his choices, no sway over his mind.

Without that burden, Kylo has allowed himself different freedoms – such as a cup of Alderaan tea, brewed light and fresh as he remembers from a childhood that is no longer his. The leaves come from a night-blooming plant that was in poetry said to have smelled fragrant in the rains at dusk. It was grown in secret by the survivors, a tiny memory of a vanished world who had taken a seedling or two with them for sale elsewhere, without knowing the preciousness of that act.

He opens up the private drawer he keeps with things that he wouldn’t choose to explain to the ignorant, and takes out the dried leaves, wrapped in a leather string pouch.

Memories that aren’t his are associated in the tea, but the ritual of the making ceremony brings him clarity of thought, just as it once did for another man with another name. He can do it almost unconsciously, the making of the brew, the stewing and pouring.

It cost him nearly the worth of a planet to find the dried leaves, so few of them are left. It had been easy to buy them. Leaders need give no explanations. He had asked a meaningless officer to buy them for him, and had killed the officer on receipt. The woman’s face had been so surprised. She had been holding out her hand for payment.

 No one on board knows him as anyone other than Kylo Ren. His former life was dead with Snoke, as far as this ship is concerned.

The tea lets out its whirls of steam, fragrant and light. He breathes in the scent. He _knows_ this scent. It takes him somewhere distant and beautiful, green forests and clear lakes, poetry and song. Distant women smile at him through braided hair, lift their faces for his inspection, while the men clink their elegant glasses together. There is a warm breeze on the air.

A vision of something he never knew. The Force and Alderaan have old connections, he thinks wryly. The first sip is tart like citron and soft like smoke, and it stimulates his mind. He has a few hours before it is time for the first commands of the day, the dispatches from Hux, the planning and strategy.

There is something there now in his recollections of the dark eight hours, he realises. He can’t quite find it all yet, but now there is an outline of something. He feels a sudden touch of small hands, running on the exposed skin of his arms and neck. The contact is warm and full of strength.

Whose hands, he wonders.

No one has touched Kylo Ren for a very long time with hands like that. Inquisitive, firm hands that aren’t touching in battle but in some other act. They are careful, measured and so impossibly warm against the cold he feels. He is grateful for them. They are so strong and safe, and they are associated with a feeling of well-being and connection.

Someone has been with him after all, he realises. Not a First Order grunt, certainly not a medi-drone or a doctor. The touch he feels isn’t medicinal. It is far too curious and lingering for that, too intrigued in him. Too intriguing in return.

He can trace behind the touch some other memory of a different touch altogether. He is being embraced in a hug, and it smells like –

What is that smell, he thinks? It’s something powerfully familiar, a bit like a smoked leaf and engine grease; the smell of wheat and a kind of warmth and spice.

The hug smells like the father of Ben Solo, he realises, with a jolt. This is an old memory of his, something from the childhood he left behind, except it isn’t because he can feel it as it happened only minutes before.

 _Can’t beat an old dog_ , he hears, and it’s Han’s voice in his head, alongside the gentle thump of a holochess piece.

Had his – Ben Solo’s – father ever said that to him in life? Kylo can’t remember it if he had. It sounds so solid and defined in his mind, as if it had been a part of his missing hours. Impossible, of course. Han Solo is quite definitively dead, and even if he weren’t, they wouldn’t be playing holochess together, not these days. Not with the murder and all.

The tea is still steaming. He inhales deep in it, closing his eyes, and the steam rises into his nose and throat, suffusing him. It helps. The scent is cleansing and reviving. It has a kind of power to it, although not the sort that Snoke ever understood.

 _I don’t know what to do_.

This time he can hear Rey’s voice, and it sounds fearful and urgent. She is panicking. This is not a memory from his real life, he is sure about that. The girl has never been so unguarded around him, so open with her fear. He has only felt her terror, not seen it expressed.

Was she here, he wonders. Were they her hands that he could feel on his skin? Surely not, with such careful movement like that, with such obvious interest.

If her hands were anywhere near his throat, they’d be in a choke, he thinks dryly. She’d made that clear enough. It couldn’t have been her.

Yet the more he thinks about it, the clearer it seems that it was her. The hands fit her shape, her size. They were almost certainly the hands of a woman. Something has happened in his missing hours that involves Rey, and he must find out the answer to this puzzle.

Has she done something to him, at the bequest of the Resistance? Some Jedi trick that Luke never taught to him; something she has gleaned some other way? Has she played with him, shaped his recollections, taken him out of time? Is this what this is? If so, where has she taken him and for what purpose?

The thought fills him with rage. She, scarcely a toddler in her use of the Force, so little training? 

The time for answers is  _now_ , he thinks. No more waiting. 

He sets the cup down and walks towards his private vessel, intent on a journey to find the stupid girl and end this before it can go further and do him yet more harm.

 

 

 


	6. Prey Instinct

 

On his way to his shuttle, his mind is dark.

He feels rage at her trickery, her audacity. He feels a stab of shame, supressed just below his consciousness, at not having been good enough to stop her. He also feels the general low-level and pervasive sense of irritation that he has felt since he was nine, alone and bored on an island full of people who didn’t understand him. He always feels that unspecified sense of pressure, pushing against him. It sparks and pulls against its chains. It always longs to be free.

Where is she?

He knows that he can find her. All he has to do is think. She will be with the Resistance, such as it is  Where would the mother of Ben Solo go to hide? Where would she take a beleaguered and dying group of traitors? Where would a little scavenger run away to hide?

He has to kill her. Whatever has happened to him, the sickness he has felt, the nagging doubts, the sensation of the Light in him, it is all something to do with her. She is the reason for his faltering command, for his moments of hesitation.

He must find her.

The idea comes to him of Ahch-To. They put the map together too late. He knows now that this is where his uncle went to die, to disappear from the world. Perhaps she is therenow, trying to be the Jedi she cannot be. Perhaps there he will find answers to her story, and his own. It would be fitting to kill her there.

Would she return to Jakku? Limited chance of that. Her parents are made of sand and bone now, dead in their paupers, graves. What waits for her on Jakku?

Coruscant? His mother’s city, a place to hide in the crass glitter of money and commerce and status and rank. But surely not, surely the city is too open, too risky. 

_Where?_

The thought consumes him. It clears his mind to that single sharp point, the single word, the single idea.

Where?

Inside his shuttle, the controls seem to mock him. He can go anywhere, but he doesn’t know where to go. At random, or perhaps not, he connects for Ahch-To. He will try there first. If nothing else, he can raze the temple to the ground. He can spit on the bones of his dead uncle. It will bring its own kind of satisfaction, he supposes. Perhaps the power of the island will be something he can harness.

He ignores that weak, small part of him that feels compelled towards the island, the sacred place of his childhood, for some other reason. That has nothing to do with this.

The ship whirs into motion, into hyperdrive. With a blink, he is gone. Everything else will have to wait.

He reaches for her in his mind, willing the Force to make a connection, to find her somewhere across the galaxy. He will get to her if it’s the last thing he does. Hux can wait. The briefings, all of it. He can project himself across the galaxy if he must, to hold command. There has to be an answer to this, and he can take the wait no longer. Reaching, reaching –

_Thank God, Ren!_

He hears her voice, absurdly close but she sounds wrong. Pleased to hear from him, palpable relief in her tone. He gulps back his feeling of unease. Something is wrong with her too.

 _I couldn’t get back_ , she says. _I’ve been trying for the last two hours. I don’t know how to use this. Are you all right? Kriff, Ren. Kylo. Ben. I don't know what to call you. Are you all right?_

He projects feelings of rage and dismissal as best he can, masking the confusion he feels.

 _You speak as if we made contact before_.

 _What?_ She says. _Are you trying to be funny? Hilarious. Kriff fuck, stop being so imperious. Did it work? Did I do it? I couldn’t keep projecting. I’m so sorry. I tried, but I just couldn’t – I didn’t know if I’d got it all._

 _I am unaware of what you speak_ , he says.

 _Oh Kriff._ Now she sounds exasperated. _What do you remember? Just tell me you’re all right._

He tries to maintain his dignity, his rank, not to mention his rage towards her.

It is, he must admit, difficult. It has been a long time since anyone has projected such benevolent feelings towards him. He is used to feeling dread, hatred, resentment, disdain and rage. He isn’t used to concern. It rubs unpleasant against his skin, as if someone is trying to put him in too-soft fabric.

It has been many long years since someone has asked if he is all right. So very many.

 _You played some perverse game with me,_ he says. _You used the Force to subvert my memories. I'm going to kill you for what you have done._

 _Fuck I did_ , she says, and thinks and not for the first time, that she has quite some way to go before she attains the neutrality of Jedi. _Someone tried to poison you_ she said. _I healed you with the Force. You taught me how. Or I figured it out. I don’t know. You were dying, Ren._

He laughs aloud.

_Why would I do that? Why would you? This is just a trick you’re playing, a diversion. Make no mistake that it won’t stop me. Won’t stop us. The First Order –_

_Shut up_ she says, interrupting. _Save the speech. It happened. You shouted out to me to help you. You were out of your mind. You told me about the birds._

_Birds?_

_I had a vision,_ she said. _I was training with the Force, trying to stop and slow movement. I can’t do it. You saw me there, trying to stop birds in flight. You said you could show me what to do._

He snorts. _If that’s true, then Skywalker was even worse of a teacher than I thought. I learned that when I was nine._

_You said you were still a Jedi._

He holds back rage, and an older, sadder and far worse feeling that he chooses to have no name for.

_I’m quite certain that you are lying._

_You said sorry._

_I would never lower myself to apologise to scum like you._

_Well you did, you bastard._ Her voice is sharp and far-away. _I came through to you. You asked me for help, and I came. You were full of poison. You were dying._

_I have no recollection of this._

She snorts. _Clearly._

Her voice softens. _Kylo, you had Light around you. Like Master Luke. You weren’t like before. Something happened to you._

_I –_

At that moment, there is a crackle on his com-bracelet. An incoming transmission. He taps it open, and a hologram of General Hux emerges, bright and crisp.

‘Supreme Leader Kylo Ren is dead,’ he says. ‘Effective as of this message, I command the First Order. Any who seek to doubt this will be shot on sight. Any who seek to uphold the memory of the former leader will be punished severely. The Force is dead with Kylo Ren. Any users of the Force will be considered enemies of the state. Continue your work.’

Kylo and Rey both freeze. She has heard the message too.  

 _You don’t look dead to me_ , she says, trying for levity. _What the hell’s going on with you?_

His rage tears through him like lightning and she winces, feeling it across their connection. He sends an urgent message to Hux. He is threatening, murderous. In his head, Rey is fighting to get out.

‘Ah,’ Hux’s voice says, on an open transmission. ‘I see you received the message, Ren.’

‘Account for yourself immediately,’ Kylo says, white heat of rage coursing through him.

‘Well.’ There is a little smirk in Hux’s voice. ‘You see, we had you poisoned, Ren. It was simple enough. A dose in your food. It takes a little time to work, but we were confident enough that by morning you would be dead. Even Jedi need their internal organs. Imagine our surprise when you were nowhere to be found when we checked.’

‘You –‘ Kylo is almost screaming now. The heat of it is making his craft shake. His fury could tear down planets.

‘Don’t do anything rash,’ Hux says, almost soothingly. ‘We have control of the ship and all seven key bases. I wouldn’t come back if I were you, Ren. Not unless you want to fight against 400,000 men on your own. Not, of course,’ and here he preens slightly, ‘that I doubt your prodigious skill. But I do rather wonder if even such a talented fighter could surpass those odds.’

‘I will stop you.’

‘Perhaps.’ Hux gives a genial smile. ‘Of course, you’d have to account for rather a lot. Your surprising resurrection and all. They’re already suspicious of the Force. It’s not something people like, Ren. Not at all. You and that little troglodyte, that runt from Jakku. The things you can do don’t sit well with ordinary people.’

‘I am the Supreme Leader,’ Kylo says, projecting as much of the Force as he can. ‘I will kill you slowly, Hux. I will take each bone that you possess, and I will make it scream with pain. I will rip every muscle into shred, each drop of your blood into agony.’

Hux remains impassive.

‘You’ll have to get to me first,’ he says. ‘By the way, we took the precaution of tracking your shuttle. Interesting choice of location, Ren. A Jedi temple. Whatever would Snoke have said? We have fighters following you. Let’s hope your magic powers are up to it.’

With that, he disappears.

 Kylo is alone in his shuttle, which is careening towards Ahch-To. Instinctively, he swerves its course. An abandoned mystical island isn’t the place he wants to fight for his life. He needs space to think, to process his next move. Somewhere so exposed, so remote, that isn’t going to help him. There will be nowhere to hide.

Plus, it’s an oasis of Light, and he’s a Dark supreme leader. He isn’t sure that the island is necessarily going to be on his side.

He needs to get somewhere from which he can disappear, he realises. Going back to the command ship isn’t an option he wants to pursue, if Hux truly does have control. He might be able to fight his way in, but – for what? A bloodied and bruised confrontation. He needs to win back control from a position of power, not as a lone fighter.

Across their connection, he feels Rey’s fear. Instinctively, she is responding to his own.

 _Kylo_ , she says. _Ben. Ben, please. Come to the Resistance. We can prote –_

Abruptly, he cuts her off. He severs their connection with a satisfying fuzz of the Force at work. Whatever has happened to him, and between the two of them, it can only be a distraction at present. He just can’t give her space. He can feel too much of her, and she knows too much. His location is valuable to her as well as to Hux. She is not on his side, not necessarily an ally. 

Instead, he calculates the odds of his survival, which are rather low, and he has a strange memory of his father, that seems to rise up unbidden.

 _When you’re being chased, you know what the worst thing you can do is?_ Han had said, as he had swung his little legs on the captain’s seat of the Falcon, sitting in his dad’s lap. _Act like prey. Keep running, keep letting them chase. You gotta act like another predator would. Do your own thing, keep up the surprise. Make them the prey if you can. Do whatever it takes._

 _Well_ , Kylo thinks, not without a sense of the irony of who he is taking advice from. _Right you are_.

He controls the shuttle neatly, looping it back and sets a course for the nearest trading planet he knows, a mere hop away (although whether short enough, he isn't sure) – Ultaraan.

 

 

 

 


	7. Olos Kid

 

 

He swings just in time – it is mere seconds before he sees a shot, where he would have been, had he not careened so wildly away. They are here then, he thinks. He is in hyperdrive now, spinning frantically towards Ultaraan. He isn’t going to _land_ at hyper-speed, surely to kriff, is he? He doesn’t know, but he figures if his father can do it, so can he – and kriff but he enjoys this, the rush, the adrenaline of flying like this -

He has a brief moment of inspiration. His comms device is surely tracked as well as his shuttle. He crushes it underfoot as the shuttle craft lurches, sickening and fast, a bolt out of time and space. He is hurtling now, sure to crash into the docking bay – he isn’t going make it through, not like this.

Kylo calls his attention to the Force. It’s always been there and it always will.

 _I’m at one with the Force_ , he thinks, willing it to be true. _The Force is with me. I’m at one with the Force. The Force is with me._

Fuck kriff, this shuttle just isn’t built to do this. Any in any case, if it’s been tracked, he has so little time –

He pulls up on the controls, slowing impact. He’s going to land, he’s not going to crash – if he can just get down to the ground, and out of the shuttle, he might be in with the merest of chances to survive. Whatever’s waiting for him on the docking bay of Ultaraan, it can’t be worse than death.  Other people, other ships. They all mean the possibility of freedom. He has to try this. 

Thrumppp. He lands with a screech and scream of metal. The shuttle is practically smoking, and he can actually smell something charring. The whole thing isn’t going to last, he thinks. It’s better that way. They’ll blow it up for him, or it’ll blow itself up. Either way, he’s out of here.

He’s runs for the door, taking only his lightsaber with him, and he jumps it – straight onto the tarmac of a loading bay, where there are surprised people everywhere, shouting voices – so much chaos. He sees open hangars, loading droids, pilots, traders, noise and light, and it's overwhelming. 

The whoosh behind him tells him his shuttle is about to blow. He’s got seconds, he thinks.

 _Boom_. There is a terrible burst of smoke and flame.  He amplifies it, spreading the smoke out as far as he can – the Force pushes it everywhere, whirls of it covering him, choking his throat. This is his opportunity. Willing it to the Force, he takes the moment of distraction, and he jumps inside an open hangar of the ship docked next to him. He crouches down inside, pushes himself behind a crate of what smells, at least, to have something slightly sweet inside it, and hides. His heart is racing faster than he knew it could. He hasn't felt like this in years.  

There is commotion outside, now the smoke is clearing. His ship is certainly gone to flame and ash.

Another noise. The sound of a hangar door closing. He hears footsteps, and a man’s voice, speaking into a comms device, he thinks:

‘Better burn atmo,’ he, the man says and he sounds cheerful, ‘because that ship was landing chased. Whoever was on their tail, we don’t wanna meet them. What kind of crazy bastard lands in hyper? Must have been serious.’

The hangar door slides shut with a thoroughly resounding thump. It is seconds before Kylo can feel the whir of the hyperdrive in motion, and seconds again before he remembers how to breathe.

 _Thank the force_.

He is alive. He is currently in a hangar of a ship, with absolutely no idea where they’re going, with no possessions, no communication possibility, presumed dead –

But he is alive. He is resoundingly, emphatically, alive. 

And whatever they are transporting here, it evidently has to be stored at room temperature and condition. He’s not even slightly cold – he’d expected he’d have to make a run for it to the door to the ship, Force-push it open and take his chances on board. As it is, he can just stay in the hangar. He’s got time.

Or, at least, he’s got time until wherever they are going next – if this is a cargo ship bound for a First Order planet, he might well be dead on arrival.

Kylo, however, is an old hand at trusting in something bigger than yourself. He jumped to this particular open hatch for a reason. He’s on this ship for a reason too. He knows that. He can feel it in his bones, the resounding _rightness_ that accompanies this place. He is absolutely in the right place. 

 He knows _how_ to trust the Force. He  just hasn’t exactly wanted to, not for a long time. Snoke understood it, but he didn't live that way. The Force wasn't a neutral agency for them; not for darksiders. It was a tool, a source of power, a means to an end. It was never neutral.

But now he’s got no other choice, he remembers the liberation that comes with trusting yourself entirely to the Force. It doesn't actually matter where he's going, he thinks, with a flash of his former Jedi training. One planet or another, they'll all serve the purpose the Force has in mind.

 He feels a strange sense of serenity, of freedom. He is no one. He is a dead man twice over. Kylo Ren is, in one sense, dead. Ben Solo, is in a different but no less relevant sense, also dead.

He is some other nameless person, neither Supreme Leader nor Supreme Jedi Nephew. He isn’t _anyone_.

The thought dizzies him. He is quite literally no one at all. He lies down on the hangar floor and breathes deeply. It is pitch black in here, save the winking of the electronics of the atmospherics and loading mechanisms. There is oxygen, there is heat. He can _live_.

And wherever he lands, he can start again.

He has to choose a name, he realises. People in maturity, as he is, have names. They have to have some identity to hold. Here he is, a stowaway in a cargo hold, the ruins of an empire at his feet, and he doesn’t even have a name. It makes him want to laugh.

So Kylo Ren remembers how to laugh. Lying there in the blackness, nothing but his cloak around him, he finds himself laughing. It is the exhaustion, the fear that has consumed the last hours of his life, but he laughs and laughs, and it seems to ease his spirit.

He has flashes to a dream of his father. They are playing holochess, and Kylo is losing, for the hundredth time.

 _Can’t beat an old dog,_ his father says.  _You picked a stupid name._

It seems so vivid, and he’s beginning to realise that whatever happened to him when he was poisoned, it has something to do with his father. There was some communication between them. He can sense that; sense the truth of it. There is something there in his memory of Han Solo, who he can still think of in some way as his father – it comes easier than it did before.

 _You had Light around you_ , Rey had said. He believes her now, about all of it. She must have saved his life, and he doesn’t understand that at all – but he can still feel the touch of her hands on his skin, and with it comes a feeling of enormous warmth and –

He can’t remember the word for it. That feeling is something like when you’ve been fighting and you win, and then you get to the ‘fresher and you let the warm water run over you, and it feels good to soothe your muscles, feels _warm_ , yes, but something more than that. Something about being at the end of a long journey, and being free of it.

What is that feeling called? It’s been so long since he had those kind of names in his head. He knows anger, and pain, and rage and despair. But the other ones, they seem so distant. They're all things he has put away. Whatever it is, he enjoys the sensation now. He is someone else, no-one. He is free to enjoy whatever sensations he so chooses.

For his own amusement, he tries smiling. He wonders if he is, in fact, oxygen-starved. He smiles to himself, and it feels good. Like perfecting a form -

 _You said you were a Jedi_.

Well, he isn’t a Jedi. He’s sure of that. But on the other hand, he isn’t exactly _not_ a Jedi.

_You’ve just gotta find a way to be me and your mother at the same time. No wonder you got confused._

Who said that? It sounds so much like his father. Kylo is struggling now. The blackness of the hangar is serving the function of sensory deprivation. He has nothing to focus on except himself, and memories are surging up. He is sure they are from the time he lost. He has a perfect memory of his father saying exactly that – he’d never said it to Kylo in life. He wishes he had, but he’d been so young when they were separated. He’d never regained their closeness not when he began training with Uncle Luke, and there was never any time to say anything.  

_I love you kid. Forget about it. I forgive you. Make it right._

He gulps, hard. His father definitely didn’t say that to him either. Yet this memory is here, warm and solid. It happened. The memory of the conversation fills his throat with another unknown, desperate feeling.

 _I’m sorry_ , he thinks abstractedly. _This is sorrow._

Kylo Ren, alone in a hangar in deep space, begins to cry. He hasn’t cried for so long. It doesn’t feel right, he doesn’t know if he understands how people do it.

For a long time, he cries. He experimentally makes a noise, to see if it makes him feel better. It doesn’t, but somehow it helps anyway. It makes it feel truer, and stronger, to be able to cry. 

He settles on a new name. Wherever he is going, this one will serve him well.

Olos Kid.

Why not? He isn’t ready, maybe will never be ready, to be Ben Solo again. But somehow, he thinks he can cope with being Han Solo’s son better than he cope with being Leia Organa’s heir. He certainly isn't Kylo Ren. 

Yes, he can cope with being Solo in reverse. Somehow, the conversation he has in his memory tells him that his dad wouldn’t mind the reversal of his surname. Han never did mind a joke.  And as for the surname, well, somehow it just makes sense too. He always was _kid_ to him, and to Chewie, and to Luke. It's okay with Kylo. There's something about it he even likes - being a kid again might not be the worst thing that could ever happen to him. There's something in there, some immediacy of need, that speaks to him in a place that he didn't know was still left.

He doesn’t know where that leaves Kylo Ren, exactly. Dead, in the eyes of the First Order, he hopes. Twice so, since his shuttle exploded.

In his mind is still the seed of black rage against Hux, but it’s tempered with something else. The person in him who felt free when Snoke died is now freer than he’s ever been. The man whose lightsaber seemed to be changing colour, the one who found himself meditating in the throne room, the one who drinks Alderaan tea. That person is now, for the first time in his life, in no one's service. He is just himself, breathing in and out in a hangar. 

All the parts of him that never fitted into Kylo Ren, and all the parts of him that never fitted into Ben Solo. Where can they all go, if not into a new person? 

So, Olos Kid it is.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kylo/Ben/Olos needs an urgent hug. Please send.


	8. K'than

Who is Olos Kid?

The question occupies his thoughts as he lies there, the transporter he is on moving steadily towards its destination. What is his own destination going to be?

Becoming Kylo Ren had been easy. By the time Snoke recruited him, Ben had been a hotbed of emotions. Pride, anger, frustration, and loneliness. Above anything else, an abiding sense of loneliness.

He’d never fitted. It was impossible to be _normal._ Snoke had taken that feeling, and had shaped it into rage, into a sense of profound separation from other people. The loneliness became not a state of being, but an identity in itself.

 It had all come naturally to Kylo. He had been interested in the idea of his own abnormality, his own ability to do things that other people simply couldn’t do. The stretch into turning that into his entire self wasn’t so difficult after all.

His uncle hadn’t been skilled enough as a teacher. That was the root of the problem, he thought. Luke had just been a man who found his own way to the Force, and who had come into being a Jedi too late in his life to really _understand_ it. He substituted understanding with austerity, rigidity, and more than anything else with distance. He thought that distance _was_ being a Jedi.

It hadn’t ever been enough for Ben to learn from. Whatever path Luke was on, that path didn’t give Kylo the right things to learn from.

 _A Padawan’s Master must be the very opposite of that Padawan’s path to come_ , he had read once, in one of interminable verses of the Sasraham, the Jedi text from which Luke derived most of his teaching.

_A Master who can only mirror the path of his Padawan cannot lead; how can one guide a way amongst a thousand ways without knowledge of the many by which one chooses? Between a Padawan and Master comes a shared destiny, a shared spirit, but not a shared path. Say not that a warrior is led by a warrior; say not that a lamb is led by a lamb. A prophet shall lead a warrior and a lamb shall be led by a warrior. In this way comes growth._

All well and good, Kylo had thought when he read it as a fourteen-year old, already half-way to being lost. But Uncle Luke was only one teacher, for seventeen students. How could he be the right Master for all of them, all at once? Luke and Kylo had similar problems, similar energies. They were direct relatives on the same bloodline. If any two Jedi were similar, it was them.

It wasn’t really about the Dark and Light bit. They were on the same journey. Luke was the son of Darth Vader. He had his own struggles with the idea of that. He was reclusive, quiet, and rather remote because he didn’t know how to handle his feelings. Then he got his little nephew on board, a child who was also reclusive, quiet and rather remote, and who didn’t know how to handle his feelings.

It wasn’t right, any of it. And Luke’s teachings had never really _worked_ for Ben. They had only pushed him deeper into grooves he wanted to break out of, because Luke was in those same grooves and he didn’t _know_ the way out.

There was a story in the Sasraham that Ben had liked to read when he was young, of a female master called K’than who had, one day on her own whim, been riding on the back of a donkey when she had decided to transmute herself into the spirit of a horse.

Whether this was literally true or metaphorically didn’t matter. The point was, she did it, and the donkey started to react as if she really _were_ a horse, and attempted, frantically, to mate with her. The donkey managed to knock K’than off its back, so excited it was, and it then inadvertently tripped over a stone and died.

K’than, ever calm in her powers, observed that this proved absolutely nothing except that horses didn’t ride donkeys for a reason.

Sometimes Ben had thought that a master like K’than, someone _less_ like him, someone more light-hearted, more bizarre, more worldly in some ways, would have brought him out of himself. Luke had only ever pushed him further in.

He would have just liked to have been _normal_. Fun. Someone more like K’than (not necessarily in the being mated with by donkeys aspect, but in the spirit of enterprise).

Well, now he has his chance. Olos Kid sounded like a light-hearted kind of guy. Perhaps he could be now, for a short time at least.

Kylo tries to think about times when he was that person.

He remembers drawing on the hull of the Falcon, scratching out a picture of two Wookies fighting each other. He had scratched it with a marker light he had found on the deck. His father had been so angry, but Uncle Chewie had roared with laughter and approval.

Where did that memory come from? That was something he’d long forgotten.

But that little boy, he concludes, knew how to have fun. In some way or another. That was being a normal child, wasn’t it? Somehow he associates the memory with a feeling of normalcy.

Kylo has no experience with children. He has never talked to one or seen one, not since he was one himself. He has been an apprentice all of his life, leading an austere and controlled set of practices. He has been an aesthete, a novice monk, a warrior.

He has never really been a _person._

The thought makes him sad. He was nine when he left to train with Uncle Luke; he was fifteen when he left to train with General Snoke. By the time he was 25, he was commanding armies. He has always fought, he has always meditated, he has always lived by control and strength.

 He is 29 years old, and he has never really experienced being a person who is free from the burdens of being important, in one way or another. His mother expected things of him from the moment of his birth. He was supposed to be the Jedi that defeated evil; he was supposed to be the Prince of Alderaan. A diplomatic leader, a warrior, the continuation of a rich legacy.

When was there ever going to be space to just be himself?

What does being a person entail?

He has little idea. The memories he has of his childhood before training are so vague. He has ideas that he and his father glided around, chasing each other in the Falcon. They played holochess. He shot Chewie’s bowcaster. He has memories of his mother teaching him an instrument, something that sounded low and gentle. Falling down a hill, blood on his knee.

But even then, there had been the Force. It had been with him since he could first think.

 _I need to practising joking_ , he says to himself. Whoever he is, he decides that he might enjoy learning how to joke. How hard can that be?

 _What would K’than have taught him_ , he wonders? That is, if he weren’t a Dark-sider, weren’t soaked in the blood of thousands upon thousands of lives. K’than would have crushed him to death, most like.

But assuming not…

There's a sudden sharp noise.

‘Hey,’ a voice says, from up above in the ship, making Kylo jump, much to his own embarrassment.

‘Hey you down there, Mr Stow-away Exploding Shuttle Man. Gonna come up on board, have a drink, and explain why in the name of Kriff you jumped into my hangar?’

 


	9. It’s only a fool who thinks he’ll ever know what those reasons may be

 

Instinctively, Kylo reaches for the hilt of his lightsaber. It would be the easiest thing, he thinks. One man, and someone who sounds so _friendly_. One stupid little door to open, one second’s advantage of the element of surprise. It’s more than enough to kill, to stage a take-over of this ship.

Although of course, for Kylo Ren everyone has always been easy to kill. Friendly people the most of all. They practically invite you in to the act of their own murder.

‘I’m not with the First Order,’ the man shouts. ‘I’m not with the Resistance either. I’m not a drug baron, I’m not a _shre-thanka_ , I’m not gonna put you in chains, I’m not gonna do a damn thing to you. But if you’re not coming up, I’m coming down into the hangar so we can at least have a conversation.’

 _Shre-thanka,_ Kylo thinks. He knows the dialect from his childhood as a trading pigeon, something he heard bandied around in the less refined back-alleys of Coruscant. Loosely translated it means, ‘politician’. The connotation of the word is most emphatically not favourable. ‘Pig-politician’ might be more accurate.

‘And I’m gonna flick the lights on now,’ the man shouts again. ‘Sorry to keep you in the dark. I left the life support on for you, but I needed the power for the lights for up here. I’ve got a problem with my reval.’

Kylo loosens his grip on his lightsaber. It’s a tiny, almost incidental movement, but as he does it, it feels as he has made a momentous decision. He isn’t sure if it’s a decision that’s permanent or just for now, but at the very least he’s decided he isn’t going to _immediately_ kill this person. That’s as much as he’s ready to deal with, and it’s already something new.

‘I’m coming up,’ he shouts back. ‘Just open the door.’

‘Ah, you do speak Basic!’ The other man sounds satisfied. ‘Thank Kriff. I was worried I’d have to try to speak to you in Ugthan! The only word I know is _skt’aal.’_

Kylo takes four steps up to the door that is now sliding open at the other end of the hangar, flooding the vast space with light. Four steps, and he pushes his lightsaber even further back in his pocket.

‘What does that mean?’ he says, evenly, as he approaches.

The man standing in front of him gives him an extremely wide and almost entirely harmless smile. ‘Alcohol,’ he says. ‘Always the first and last word to know when you’re on the road.’

Then he holds out his arm upon which a delicate link of freckles show, faintly, through his white shirt.

‘Joris de Pal,’ he says. ‘Guess I’m the guy who saved your life.’

Kylo shakes his hand. The contact feels warm and safe. Joris is as tall as he is and leanly well-muscled, with a flush of red hair and a nose that is ever so slightly snub. Something about him gives Kylo an odd sense of peace.

‘Olos Kid,’ he says, and it nearly sounds natural.

‘I saw you get on,’ Joris says. ‘Nice distraction with all that smoke, by the way. What did you do, set the filters too high or something? There’s no way it would have smoked that much on its own.’

Kylo gives him a cautious but discernible thing that may almost be a smile.

‘I may have amplified it a bit.’

‘Right.’ Joris laughs. ‘Well, great amplification. Unluckily for you, Olos Kid, I’ve got sharp eyes. That’s why I let the life support run in the hangar. Didn’t want you to freeze to death, after all. Not much point hauling you out of there for you to die of hypothermia in some space junk basement.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘What, no thanks?’ Joris gives him a look of mild irritation. ‘I didn’t just save the life of a total pudruska, did I?’

‘Err, no. Thanks.’ The word feels quite unfamiliar to Kylo. He isn’t in the habit of _thanks_. But as the word forms on his tongue, he has a strange but not unpleasant feeling that it can be a nice word to use. It doesn’t feel that bad.

Olos Kid is a man who says thank you, he thinks. Saying thanks is one of the first things Olos, so newly born as he is, has ever done. Apart from not killing someone, that is.

‘Sure. And we’re headed to Yadrin.’

‘Uff,’ Kylo says, which probably isn’t overly diplomatic, but on the other hand, Yadrin is an agricultural planet he knows best for its reputation as a hotbed of bawdy jokes, excessive regulation, excessive corruption, beer and a high concentration of farmers.

What was that joke Han Solo used to tell?

‘How do you know the guy you’re trading with is from Yadrin?’ Kylo says out loud to Joris, delivering the first joke he’s made in approximately seventeen years.

Joris gives him a little quirk of his lips and answers for him. ‘Answer, he’s the one who’s stabbing you in the front with one hand while he’s holding up a stabbing in the back permit with the other.’

‘Right.’

‘So,’ Joris says. ‘Olos Kid.’ He draws the syllables out strangely as he looks Kylo over. ‘We’ve got another three hours before we land. You feel like getting out of this hangar and telling me why you landed a shuttle in hyper?’

‘Definitely,’ Kylo says. ‘And what’s wrong with your reval?’

‘Oh, Olos.’ Joris shakes his head and gestures for Kylo to follow him down a corridor, presumably onto the deck. ‘What’s wrong with my reval? If I knew the answer to that question, I’d already have fixed it. As it is, I don’t have the first idea in kriff.’

‘I could look at it,’ Kylo says.

‘First thing’s first,’ Joris says. ‘Before you go poking about in my engine, and don’t take this the wrong way, I’d really like to know something about why you jumped ship like that.’ Kylo starts to speak, but Joris cuts him deftly off.

‘I don’t care about the specifics,’ he carries on. ‘It’s your business. What I’m interested in, actually the only thing. Whoever’s chasing you, whoever you were running from that fast. Are they going to be after me? And whoever you’re with, if you’re with anyone, are you going to be pressing a button on your comms device to summon them any time soon?’

‘No,’ Kylo says. ‘On both counts. They think I’m dead. And I haven’t got a communicator. I smashed it before I jumped ship. I think it was probably tracked.’

‘And on Yadrin,’ Joris says, and there is a slight tension in his voice that is making Kylo twitch, but which he’s holding back by the barest thread. ‘Are you going to stab me, maim me, or generally do something highly unpleasant, disgusting or weird with a _laphrag_?’

‘I don’t know what this _laphrag_ is,’ Kylo says, honestly enough. ‘But I haven’t any specific plans to harm you.’

‘Good,’ Joris says flatly. ‘And for the record, it’s a sort of … hitty thing they have on Yadrin. Like a mace, but with a spoke that’s made of the bone of a cow. They’re cow people.’

Kylo looks at him, and again feels a surprising sense of peace. It has been years since he has talked to anyone like this. Normally. He isn’t issuing orders, torturing, extracting information, or having some kind of life and death related dispute. It’s just a conversation.

‘I shan’t hit you with a laphrag,’ he says. ‘Or anything else that involves cow parts.’

Joris deftly presses a button to slide open the door to the control room.

‘Then, by all means my non cow-hitting-with friend, take a look at this utterly kriffed up reval.’

Which is how Kylo Ren, former and possibly one day to be restored Supreme Leader of Darkness, ends up on his hands and knees ferreting around in a truly disgusting, and truly broken, revalidator engine that appears to have last been fixed some time sixty years ago.

As he works, not that he really knows what he’s doing, Joris chats to him, sitting astride a long table at the other side of the control room and swinging his graceful legs to and from.

He learns that Joris is from Yadrin (‘So I know the true meaning of sorrow,’ he says, and Kylo thinks about the way Snoke had said _let me teach you the true meaning of sorrow_ , and then he lets that thought go, breathing it out like it’s toxin, like it doesn’t even matter).

He’s at pains to tell Kylo that’s he is, however, from the other side of the planet, and doesn’t know the first thing about the no-place trading strip they’re landing on today, except that the people they’re meeting want a shipment of sugar, ploughs and crop fertilisers, and it’s likely to be the most boring job in the galaxy.

‘I heard the First Order have a supplies base on Yadrin,’ Kylo says, trying to draw the conversation to his own intentions. He isn’t sure yet exactly what those are, but at the least he wants to know what he’s going into. Joris, however, shrugs this off.

‘Not at my side of the planet,’ he says, simply enough. ‘Maybe close to where we’re going. Who knows.’

He learns that Joris is an inveterate talker, extremely lively, and that he is absolutely not a Jedi, nor a Sith, nor any kind of mystic whatsoever, but rather a trader and logistics planner with a part-time interest in linguistics, alcohol and collecting old maps of the galaxy. He’s close enough to Kylo’s age, perhaps a little younger, and he seems to enjoy the idea that he’s rescued someone on the run a little too much.

He asks Kylo where he’s from, and the answer comes readily enough.

‘Romulus 8,’ he says, thinking of the planet where they had destroyed the base, the one with the slaughtered families, the dead children, the dead everything. It’s the first names that comes to his mind, and he can feel the Force gathering around the idea in some strange way that he can’t quite identify.

‘Ah,’ Joris says. ‘Romulus 8. I heard that there was a bit of a scene there recently. Sorry, man. Even if you left home a long time ago, it’s never nice to hear of bad things happening there.’

 _I implemented the decision to do it_ , Kylo thinks. _I did that bad thing._

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Like you say. I didn’t feel good when I heard about it.’

Eventually, he fixes the reval. Basic mechanics is something he learned when he was much younger, mostly from his father. It isn’t Kylo’s preferred kind of work, but he knows his way around well enough, and certainly better than Joris, as it would seem.

When he tells him it's fixed, the other man cheers and claps a hand to Kylo’s back. The touch makes Kylo flinch, reflexively. He feels an instinctive pull towards violence. He doesn't like being touched by strangers; doesn't like informality.

 _Breathe in, breathe out_. He visualises himself, a man crouched by an engine, his hands twisting a lever. A stranger who has been saved from uncertain death by a benevolent passer-by. This man is not necessarily violent. He may not be a murderer, not today.

 _Breathe in, breathe out_. 

‘Olos!’ Joris says. ‘I knew there was a reason I let you hide in my hangar. You see, as they say in some parts of the galaxy, it all happens for its own reasons, and it’s only a fool who thinks he’ll ever know what those reasons may be.’  He checks his chronometer. ‘Landing in 43,’ he says. ‘The perfect amount of time for a drink.’

As Joris pours, Kylo thinks about that proverb. _It’s only a fool who thinks he’ll ever know what those reasons may be_.

It’s something he’s heard before, once or twice back on Coruscant. But there’s something else there in his memory, some vague association with the phrase that he can’t quite pin down. Whatever it is, he dismisses it. It can wait.

When Joris hands him a glass of a white and fragrant smelling alcohol, Kylo reflects that life as Olos Kid may be a little less important, a little less dignified, but it’s also the first time in at least fifteen years that he’s gone a whole two hours without using the Force. He has felt it, has let it permeate him; but he hasn't touched it to him as a tool, hasn't harnessed it for anything. He's just let it be.

He feels a curious ease in his spirit. None of this is real, and when they land he'll have to have a strategy, but for a brief, strange moment out of time, this is his life.  _It's always now, and it's always then, and it's always tomorrow,_ he thinks, although he doesn't understand why he does. 

Whatever this is leading to, he thinks, whatever’s awaiting us on Yadrin, the Force has a hand in this, even if Kylo isn't using it directly. He can still feel the vibrations of it settling in him, the Lightness of it. He remembers another verse, one that Uncle Luke had often repeated:

_Set your foot bravely into the unknown path, and as you walk, your spirit shall lift to be higher than birds, higher than sky itself. The path unfurls, twisting sharp and bending low. Your spirit lifts higher still, trusting only in the foot itself. To feel in this way is the essence of freedom._

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god I'm writing some kind of weird Kylo Ren farming buddy movie. What's happening to me? Thank you always for the kudos. I am having a truly great time writing this story.


	10. Borders and Landing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olos and Joris land on Yadrin, to find themselves in the middle of a rather unpleasant scene.

They get on well enough for the rest of the flight, considering that Kylo hasn't talked to anyone like this in a long time. The closest thing he's had to a friend in the last twenty years had been Rey, her hand outstretched in the firelight. But with her, there are other things to think about. 

 _You had light all around you. Like Master Luke,_ she had said, and he had heard the hope in her voice. She's still looking for a teacher, he thinks. Deep down, she's still hoping that in him she'll find something that fills the void his uncle left. He knows how it is to be a Jedi. The power of it, the endless possibilities. He also knows how it is to be a Jedi without a master. The frustration of it, the despair at yourself, the impossible feeling that if only you knew how, you could find within yourself a key that would open up the universe.

He isn't her answer. He's barely sure if he's a person yet, let alone if he's a teacher of the things he thought he'd left behind. 

At a distance, he's always aware of her now, the Force around her flickering in and out of luminescence. He can feel her attempts, her lack of skill, the way it makes her feel so lost. She's trying to harness the Force, but with no one to teach her, she can't get past the barriers she finds. She keeps trying the same things, and they keep failing her. Further below her frustration is her rage, simmering low, unnamed but not unfelt. To Kylo, her rage looks like a knife. 

Whenever he thinks of her now, he thinks of a white room, of birds flying towards her. He thinks of her hands, their softness.

All it would take now would be a simple touch, another outstretched hand -  
  
Later, he thinks. Survival first. 

Joris seems perfectly at his ease in the craft, sipping his drink and talking about the things he’s seen in the galaxy, and Kylo listens more than he talks. The extraordinary good fortune he has had in finding this affable and generous man is obvious. Without Joris, he might well have been dead. He certainly could have had less pleasant and less peaceful journeys than this one, cruising towards Yadrin with a glass of alcohol in his hand. 

The Force had its hand in their meeting. Kylo knows that, feels it intuitively. He is bound with this man. He can feel the urge, deep below, to snuff the connection out; to kill anything that holds him back, anything that isn't under his control. It's still there in him. He has his own rage, except his doesn't look like one simple knife. it looks like a thousand blades, sharp and poised, stained thick with blood. It looks like the swords of a conquering army. 

He hopes, is trying, to keep that urge buried deep. He's asked Joris about things, has tried to listen carefully to the conversation, tried to say the kind of things he could have imagined his father saying. Easy, friendly sorts of things that fuel a friendship, let a discussion run on.

Their conversation has served many purposes, but it has also given Kylo a particularly important insight as regards his survival: even after three hours of conversation, he hasn't been recognised. Joris is no home bird – the man has travelled the length and breadth of the galaxy with the deliveries he makes. He knows who the First Order are, and he certainly knows something about the political organisation that allows him his permits and passes, whose foot is so firmly stamped across the galaxy.   
  
Yet he hasn’t recognised Kylo at all and if he hasn’t, that means there’s hope that no one else will either. 

As it is, Kylo knows that the mask he used to wear helps. He knows that his generally low profile outside of the organisation also helps; he didn’t do media campaigns, didn’t really  _talk_  to anyone other than Snoke, Hux and the barrage of recruits he trained to fight and tortured alongside that. In fact, his image was necessarily one of mystery. The great and sinister Kylo Ren. His actual  _face_  was the last relevant part of the whole thing. He was just an idea.

Still, even he can be invisible, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do when they get to Yadrin.

Jump ship again, most likely. Find another place to run to, another cargo hold to hide in. Keep moving, keep the trail lengthening away from the First Order, at least for now. Find or forcefully make allies and slaves, such as they may be.

Joris hasn’t asked him directly what he wants to do, but it’s clear their paths are going to diverge at some point, and probably soon. Kylo is content to wait and see how the land lies. Perhaps things will be clearer on Yadrin. 

About ten minutes from landing, the planet's surface firmly in sight, a message comes through to the ship, bleeping blue and green lights on the video-com. Joris gestures for Kylo to move away, off-screen, and answers it with a lazy touch of his finger. 

‘Hello,’ he says. ‘De Pal and his magical ploughs at your service.’

‘Border and landing control,’ a smart voice comes over. Kylo catches the face of a woman, older and with grey-blond hair. ‘Repeat, border and landing control. Routine inspection of vehicle. You are invited to disembark at landing and submit to inspection.’

Joris raises an eyebrow. ‘Invited or demanded?’

‘Declined invitations will result in restricted movement of vehicle.’

‘Right. Demanded, then.’

‘Please report to area three. Await operatives.’

With a click, the voice fades out.

‘Blast it,’ Joris says, turning to Kylo. ‘I bet they want a bribe. These country people…’

‘You don’t think it  _is_  a routine inspection?’

Joris gives Kylo a grin.

‘You’re awfully pure of heart for a man on the run. Course not, it’s nonsense. Border and landing control? For an agricultural sector of a planet like this, for a shipment of ploughs from Ultaraan? Don't you think the First Order have got better things to do?’

‘Right.’

 _Pure of heart_.

Below the surface of his thoughts, he’s still calculating how easy it would be to disarm Joris and take control of the ship. How far he’ll get with it, he’s not sure – far enough, at least. A swift, sharp blow to the head would do it. He doesn’t even have to kill him. He could just turf him out on Yadrin, then fly away. Joris might not be too badly harmed, necessarily.

Then he'd have a nice, boring transporter. Routine trading on Yadrin; nothing so suspicious about that. He’d probably be able to hop from here to one of the bigger trading points and find a place to regroup, check in on the First Order communications about him. If it doesn't work out exactly, he could kill Joris and these border guards, if that’s what they really are. Preferably not, but he could.

What’s a few more, after all, compared to the hundreds? Kylo can’t claim he remembers how many people he’s killed directly. More than he can store in his memory; more than has ever interested him to find out. Their faces never stuck in his mind. He only ever saw them as minor problems to be disposed of, rather than as people he was killing.

 _The word killing is so very simplistic_ , Snoke used to say.  _Why not simply call it what it really is? A kindness to them. A convenience to us, of course, but in the end – only a hastening of the inevitable. A great kindness for them, to not suffer the indignities of old age and decline._

Those 23,000 on Romulus 8. What were they like, Kylo wonders? What did they eat? What kind of people were they? What precise percentage of them were children, and of those children, how many of them hadn’t lost their first tooth yet? How many of them still believed that when you lose a tooth you ought to throw it to the sun, so that you’ll have the teeth of a gazelle? He remembers that myth because at that time they'd docked on Romulus 8, Ben had been pushing his tongue around one of his baby teeth, wiggling it free. He remembers the sun on Romulus 8, the way it bled pink, the colour of grapefruit. 

Which amongst the men on that base was a dab hand at dice? Which was an amateur philosopher who annoyed people with his suppositions about the galaxy? Were there, amongst the 23,000, a young couple who that night, the night the base was eviscerated, were for the first time undressing in front of each other, their soft tongues licking at each other's skin, hesitant, proud, a tangle of heat, pressure, friction. Was there a baby being born, its light snuffed out before it could even take its first breath? 

These are all questions that Kylo has no business asking, no business even understanding as valid questions at all, yet he has thought them. Since that moment, when Hux told him there were no survivors, he’s been thinking about Romulus 8. Not specific things. The idea’s just been on his mind, and he hasn’t quite been able to clean the questions away, nor find exactly the right way to maintain intellectual distance from the problems the event seems to have opened up for him.

He doesn't understand it, because they've killed hundreds of thousands of others in hundreds of other locations, he and Hux and the First Order. The base was just a routine strategic hit. It was the right decision, to leave no survivors. He just doesn't understand why it should be this one that has made him feel something.  

But now he’s breathed in and out Light, and that changes a person, especially one who's been starved of it for so long. He can feel it hanging around in his system as if it were a lingering virus. That's the problem with the Light. Once you let it inside you, it’s terribly hard to lose it. You can't empathise with one bit of suffering and ignore other bits. You can't reach out to one person and expect to close yourself off from others. Just the same with the Dark. Once you let that inside you, it's hard to forget the possibilities it offers. There's always an easy option with the Dark.

Now he’s started to connect to the Light again, he can feel it everywhere. He can sense it better in others too. The light that radiates from Joris is faint and steady, not blazing like it is with Rey or it was with Skywalker, but slow and present, persistently there. Solid. He is sure his growing connection with the Light is also the reason that Rey is becoming less a peripheral connection and more of an insistent link in his mind. 

He preferred seeing the Dark. It let him believe he was special. Now he sees the Light, he realises it’s everywhere and in everything – and he’s just one part of that, one tiny little glimmer of the stuff of everything. 

It's a toxin that he can't hold back from spreading. Now Kylo’s chosen  _not_  to kill someone, against his own clear strategic advantage. He’s chosen to  _say thank you_. According to Rey, he’s even said  _sorry_.  Admittedly he was delirious and dying at the time, but he believes her that he did it. He’s been enfeebled, and it’s a problem.

On balance, he just doesn’t think he, or rather Olos Kid, can do any more killing right now. Maybe in a few days he’ll feel more like himself. For now, he doesn’t want to lessen his sense of clarity with any awkward experiences.. He needs to keep himself sharp. He can't have another incident like Romulus 8, where he feels sick with himself, especially when he feels so vulnerably Light, so exposed. It'll throw him off the decisions he has to make. 

So, he lets Joris dock the ship, and he doesn’t say anything about the way he does it (incorrectly; he doesn’t pull up the thrusters on time and he presses a couple of buttons that, to Kylo at least, seem totally unnecessary for this landing). He doesn’t attack, doesn't try to seize control. Kylo Ren simply waits and sees what’s coming next.

Unfortunately for him, that thing is two extremely dogmatic border guards.

As soon as they land and exit the ship on area three, which is effectively a strip of tarmac surrounded by flat, well-tended and entirely uninteresting fields and a few dilapidated-looking outhouses, the two women are there, dressed in simple blue uniforms but with rather aggressive blasters and handcuffs attached to their belts. Joris greets them without ceremony, and Kylo stands to the side. They haven’t agreed on who exactly he is in this team. A co-pilot? A mechanic? A hired bit of muscle?

Left unsaid is better. Until someone asks, there’s no need to discuss it.

‘We need to board,’ one of the women says. ‘Routine inspection.’

‘You mentioned.’ Joris is cautious now. ‘Mind if we come along on your inspection?’

‘That is un-permitted by section seven of the First Order excise and customs regulations act, paragraph three.’

‘Please continue your normal unloading,’ the other woman says. They sound to Kylo like droids rather than people, and he’s used to First Order soldiers, so that’s really saying something. 

‘While you unload, we will carry out our routine inspection. Results will be filed immediately.’

‘Okay,’ Joris says carefully. ‘Mind if we see your identification? Nothing unfriendly. Just you know, standard question.’

One of the women holds out a document from her pocket.

‘Classification six, First Order non-military. Border and landing, senior rank.’ She gives Joris what probably in her mind passes for a smile. ‘Classification six officers are required to be present at all routine inspections.’

 _The First Order don’t have non-military border and landing officers,_ Kylo thinks.  _Or they didn’t yesterday, anyway. Not when I was in charge._

He looks the two women over with a more professional eye. They’re slouched, very clearly not physically trained. They don’t look desperately underfed, but nor do they look in absolute peak condition either. They look rather drawn around their eyes, a touch haggard even. If they are in the First Order, they’re certainly not getting the regular rations. One of them has a nervous twitch in her left hand, as if she’s afraid of something, or she’s on extreme edge. She keeps trying to hide it, but he can see it as she moves.

The other, the one who has spoken most, looks calmer on the surface, but he can see how she keeps shifting her weight from foot to foot. She’s nervous too. And briefly, for a second, she makes eye contact with Kylo that gives him the strange impression that she’s  _begging._ He knows that face from the men and women he’s hurt. It’s the look that means  _help me, please stop. Just let it stop._

He keeps quiet, but now he’s aware now of a slight tension in his shoulders. There’s something wrong here, with these two. With all of this. He doesn't like where they are, either. It's tremendously open, all this field land around. There's no one around and nowhere to jump to.

Still, Joris lets the women board, and when they’re safely inside, he opens up the hangar and begins unloading the crates that belong to this job. Kylo helps him without even thinking about it.

‘Definitely bribes,’ Joris says, in a low voice. ‘Worst acting of a border guard I’ve ever seen.’

‘What do you want to do about it?’

He shrugs. ‘Play it out. Pay the bribe if needs be. Get out of here intact and with all of my legs non-mangled. Lead a quiet life.’

None of those are things that Kylo has ever really considered as options before.

‘And then?’

‘Then we ship to Yagrad, we get ourselves a beer, and we do whatever we like for dinner.’

Now there are other footsteps behind them, heavier and more insistent than the women’s were. Without turning around, Joris gives Kylo a small look.

'Here we go,' he says.

Then both of them turn around and are face-to-face with a very ugly and very angry-looking man, surrounded by a posse of what are clearly his goons, staggering towards the strip from one of the outbuildings where they have clearly been lying in wait for this moment. The men are various sizes and shapes, and are all lumbering with intent. It almost makes Kylo smile. He forgot that human beings, non military and non-Force users that is, do lumbering like that. He supposes it must be intimidating to other kinds of people than him.

‘You, pilot,’ the man says, to Kylo rather than Joris.

‘Me,’ Joris says. ‘I’m the captain of this ship and the designated trade point officer. My friend here is my… co-pilot. Helpmate. Things like that.’

‘I don’t care what he is,’ the man says jeeringly. ‘You two faggots can be anything you want to each other as far as I’m concerned. What I want to know is, you got my ploughs?’

‘Sure,’ Joris says. ‘In this load. Along with everything else.’

‘I’ll be checking it.’

‘Think your friends from border and landing are already doing some checking,’ Joris says lightly. ‘You just missed them. They’re on board.’

The man only grins at that and moves towards one of the crates. He gestures for his men to open it, and two of them do so with crowbars that are clearly intended to intimidate. Neither Joris nor Kylo blink, but it does lend a certain edge to the atmosphere now that there are weapons out. Kylo can feel his feet moving into the classic form. The sasthaka, the warrior’s stance. He's not frightened, not uncertain of himself. It just never hurts to be ready.

Inside the crate they’ve opened seems to be a few food supplies, and the leader holds one up for inspection as his goon passes it to him. As he holds it, he visibly twists the packaging apart in his hand, looking straight at Kylo and Joris as he does so.

This is bent all out of shape,’ the man says. Kylo can see petty violence in his eyes, and he thinks to himself how easy it would be to take him over; to lift his mind from its ignominious state into the glory of power. Snoke had taught him that. Corruption comes so easy to those with violence in their hearts.

‘I don’t think so,’ Joris says, affably.  There’s not a hint of aggression in him, and Kylo finds himself strangely impressed by it. 

‘Bet all of this stuff’s bent. I can’t use any of it,’ the man repeats. ‘You know lads, under section six of the what-have-you, that means you owe me.’ 

‘Ah,’ Joris says, patiently. ‘How much?’

 ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to have your ship held here,’ the man says. He gestures and two of the men clamber on board through the hangar, as they have so clearly been trained to do in this pantomime.

 He grins with a look that Kylo  _really_  doesn’t like. ‘Our friends on board can see to that, I expect. But don’t worry, you can get it back soon enough. If you work a few weeks for me in the fields, I’ll consider that fair payment for the damaged stock. You both look strong enough. Sure it won’t kill you.’

He gives them another smile. ‘I’ll keep your ship nice and safe as a deposit. To ensure we’re all on good terms.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Joris says, with only a fraction less patience. ‘Wouldn’t money be an alternative? To cover the cost of the, ah,  _damage_?’

One of the goons takes that opportunity to give him a sharp kick, and Joris reflexively doubles over in pain. Instinctively, Kylo lifts his own hand and around him he can feel a swarm of interest from the men. They are waiting to do some violence. This is what they do, he thinks. They do this kind of extortion, they are old hands at it. 

Their brutality rolls off them in waves. Animalistic and raw. Kylo can smell it like blood, and something in him answers to it. 

 But then, he reflects. He really does have to lay low. This new development may, in fact, be advantageous. No one is going to be looking for him in some stupid field on Yadrin. He can use the time out to plan his move. He lowers his hand.

 Perhaps this might serve a purpose. A day or two hiding out. 

So Olos Kid really is a man of non-violence, he thinks. For the most part. For the  _initial part_.

Next to him, Joris seems to have reached a similar kind of decision to at least not fight  _here_ , outnumbered two to eleven in an open space with no weapons. The tarmac is the most deserted landing strip Kylo has ever seen in the galaxy – Yadrin, at least at this side, must be 90% field land, he thinks. The vast plantations seem to run on forever, further than the eye can see in every direction. It would be beautiful, if they weren't caught up in an extortion racket. 

‘All right,’ Joris says, sounding weary as he stands up from being punched, adjusting himself, trying to lift his trousers up higher where they have come loose from the blow.  ‘We’ll come.’

The man nods. ‘Good decision. All’ll be fair in the end, you’ll see. My name’s Bernhard, and you’ll be doing me quite a service on the huwtha fields. I need a couple of new hands. So let’s get you two loaded up in the van and I’ll take you to the base.’ He gives them an oily smile. ‘Warm bed and ‘freshers included of course. We’re not monsters.’

Neither Joris nor Kylo bother to answer to this. 

'Anything you've got in your pockets,' Bernhard says. 'Best handed over. Wouldn't want any situations.' He nods to one of his men. 'Search them.'

 _I don't think so_ , Kylo thinks.  _Hiding out is one thing. Being weaponless in a field is another._

It takes him some strain, to control the man who is now fumbling around searching him, to keep him away from recognising the lightsaber hilt as a weapon. The other man's mind is rough and hard, and breaking into it takes work. There are no illusions, no dreams, no desires, with which Kylo can work to control him. 

Still, he manages it - the man declares Kylo to have nothing and gives him a sharp kick for his troubles. From Joris, all they take is a comms-watch and a single set of keys. One of the men smashes the comms-watch underfoot, and he plainly enjoys the violence of it.

Then they are manhandled, roughly, towards a path that leads down to a solar-van, parked some ten minutes walk away, just hidden off the main strip. 

Joris gives Kylo a wry look, when they are out of earshot of the men who are flanking them on both sides. He whispers, ‘don’t suppose there’s anything you can do about this?’

 _I could kill every single person here, including you, twice over and not even blink_.

‘Don’t think so,’ Kylo says. ‘Too many of them. Don't like the odds.’

‘Right. So, Olos. We’re going to be farm labourers.’ Joris gives him a wan smile. ‘Imagine that. Bet your parents told you that you could be anything. And you see, hasn’t it come true just as they would have hoped?’

Kylo says nothing. He only keeps walking.  _I could kill every single person here_.  _These kriffshit petty thugs._

_How would I do it? I’d force-choke Bernhard, slowly. I’d have him strung up high, already struggling to breathe. Then I’d extract the last breath from him with the Force, and he’d be glad for it and he’d hate it at the same time. I’d be doing him a kindness._

_The others, I’d kill fast. Disposable people. It’d be short and humiliating. They’d get no fight. Just a fast, pointless death._

He clenches his fist, preparing – then -

‘Don’t worry, friend,’ Joris says, with a truly ebullient smile, and there is a spirit of cheer in him that absurdly lifts Kylo out of his dark mood just an inch, just enough to regain control. ‘These things happen for a reason.’

‘I find that highly doubtful.’

‘Well.’ Joris seems again unperturbed by this comment. ‘Who knows. Maybe the peace and quiet of the fields will be nice. For a little while, at least.’  He gives Kylo a quick nod. ‘I have a plan. Don’t worry about a thing.’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reposted due to major editing of this chapter - things are getting set in motion now!


	11. Connectedness in form and movement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey's perspective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit more explicit (female masturbation, language). I know it’s the internet and it’s fanfiction so probably there’s no one reading who can be shocked by anything, but fair warning that if for some weird reason you’re not into masturbation and orgasms… you might like to not read this chapter. I guess there's a very mild sub element to this, but definitely with a vanilla hue.

 

 

It’s the late evening on Teresthe, and her roommates are away at the mess hall. Poe and Finn spend most of their leisure time there playing Pa’lath with the other soldiers, chewing the cud, drinking, talking. They have their late, long nights at the card tables while Rey tries, and fails, to read the Jedi texts she stole.

Her friends understand she’s doing something important, but they don’t fully understand what it is.  They can’t really sense what Rey goes through as she read the texts.

‘I was always terrible at this stuff in school too,’ Poe had said easily when she had expressed her frustration. ‘Give me a mechanics course any day.’

It isn’t exactly that though. Rey finds it hard to put the problem into words. It’s not only about not knowing how to do the Force tricks that she’s trying to learn. It’s more than that, more deeply connected to the texts themselves and her relationship to them.

For sure she’s no scholar. Some of the Jedi writing is poetic, ancient and remote. It doesn’t _have_ a fixed meaning to identify; it’s a jumping off point for reflection, a spark of two flints that is designed to ignite an idea. Rey knows she may not always fully understand the poesie and linguistics of it, may not appreciate the subtle mechanisms of the writing, the historical contexts, the allusions and symbolism.

But that isn’t exactly the barrier. She can _cope_ with the ambiguity of the style, the vague and meandering tone, the seemingly contradictory statements. It’s okay that she may not have the full classical learning background to understand every reference; that isn’t important to her anyway.

 It’s more than when she does think she’s understood something, when a point seems to fall intuitively into place, there’s always a shared, less welcome, sense of the uncertainty of her finding, the idea that she ought to put it into some kind of practice but she doesn’t know what that would be. It doesn’t seem to be enough to just understand what she’s reading. It feels as if there’s some further requirement there, and whatever that is, she’s missing it.

It’s the same with the forms, which she’s currently trying and failing to follow. On paper, the movements are clear. She can understand what she’s being asked to do, physically speaking, and she tries to train it. Her body bends the way it should. She’s young and the suppleness comes easy. She’s strong, too. There’s no reason that she can’t do it.

Yet as she does the movements, they feel flat, unskilful and uninspiring. There’s something mechanical about them, and they don’t seem to segue into each other naturally. The movements always jar, leaving her feeling awkward and strained, rather than at peace. It’s a relief to finish them.

The whole experience of this training isn’t giving her any security in her identity as a Jedi. If anything, it’s making her convinced that she isn’t one.

Tonight, particularly, she is finding it hard to read the words on the page. The form is supposed to be something about focus, but she’s hardly taking in a word. Her mind is full of the events of earlier in the day – being brutally wrenched into the mind and life of Kylo Ren.

Ben Solo, Kylo Ren. She doesn’t even know how to think about him.

When he was dying, she had sensed so much Light in him. She had run her hands on his body, and had willed him to live. She had put her own strength, her emotions, her love and her connectedness, into his healing. She had _felt_ with absolute certainty that he and she were connected in some fundamental and unassailable way.

For her, it had been a moment of transformation. The experience had felt to Rey as if it were her stepping off a precipice and realising that she could fly. She had been completely present in the Force, letting it guide her, intuiting what to do in a way that made her feel strong and powerful. For that brief moment, she had felt like a Jedi.

More than that. She had felt that she and Kylo Ren were present in the same experience. It was something so rich, so transformative, so deeply powerful for her. The idea that she was so connected to another person that she could actually _heal_ them through her touch, through her thoughts…

It dizzied her. Her whole life she had been looking for a connection like that, in one way or another. The experience of it was overwhelming. Impossible and overwhelming.

And he didn’t remember any of it.

When they had spoken again, the walls had been firmly in place. He had been delirious, she understands now. He was dying. He should have been dead. Whatever he had taken, it had left him in a state beyond conscious reason, and now he was back to the same old mode.

The whole thing is a mess. Wherever he is, he’s now fleeing the First Order. She can feel him, distantly, as a kind of hum of power in the corner of her mind. He’s always there in mind, a fuzzy and unshaped but present idea of strength, of power.

She can’t stop thinking about his eyes when he looked up at her. They were so wide and open to her. Then the way his body felt, its long contours. Rey’s never touched someone else like that before – long, slow and insistent touch. Focus.  

Distractedly, her fingers slide, carefully, against her upper thigh. The movement is natural, unhurried. Her own body, her own hands. The book she is reading is set aside on the bed.

The skin there feels soft, smooth, and vulnerable. Its warmth invites further attention. She runs her fingers against herself, dipping inwards softly, hardly daring to move further. She can feel her cunt, warm and wet underneath her underwear. Her fingers trace languid circles on her thighs, caressing herself like a lover.

She takes her time. There’s nothing to hurry for here on Teresthe. Poe and Finn won’t be back for hours; they give her space to study.

Her finger grazes, just slightly, on the place she’s stroked herself to sleep with for as long as she can remember. It feels warm, comfortable. She curls her finger around in an exploratory circle, pushing against the nerves she finds there.

Kylo Ren is looking at her, she thinks, and they’re connected to each other. She imagines his body, the way it moves in fight. She can feel him lifting her up and pushing her against a wall, holding her against him. She wraps her legs around his body, and then his mouth, hot and insistent, is against the softness of her neck. He nips at her, kissing a steady slow line up to her ear, licks the lobe of it. She holds on fast to him, and she knows she’s going to come hard.

Since she healed him, since that moment of connectness, she’s felt a frustration at its loss. It’s nagged at her for the last hours, coloured her day with a feeling of low-level irritation, dissatisfaction. She’s aching for connection like that again. With him, with anyone. Mostly with him.

She can’t stop thinking about the way he looks. She’s imagining her hand dipping lower, rubbing against the fabric of his trousers. Her mouth hot over it, teasing, warming him. Unfastening, the way it would feel to kiss the length of him, to lick slowly at his cock, to graze her tongue over its tip.

She has no experience with it, but she’s seen the holovids. She’s seen people on Jakku, late at night in the darkness. She’s watched them tangle their bodies together, rubbing against each other, rutting, moaning. Would he moan like that? 

She knows she would. This tension she’s feeling, this frustration, it’s not just sex. It’s everything. She doesn’t know how to be a Jedi. She doesn’t know how to be a warrior. Everything’s gone wrong, and she’s stuck here, waiting for an answer that she can’t find because she doesn’t know how to look for it.

The only thing that makes sense is the way it felt when her hands were on his skin.

Her finger is insistent now, circling, pushing, teasing. No one ever taught her this, and no one’s ever seen it. She just knows the way it feels is _good_ , and she begins to stroke up and down, against the place that belongs to the nights, dark and alone in her bed.

Her thighs tremble with it, and her stomach is tense with expectation. She’s wet and ready. She moves one of her fingers inside herself, pushing rhythmically.

She is so close, like this, stroking herself up and down, slow and strong. Circling lightly, stroking up and down. The rhythm she keeps is steady. She ignores her body’s desire for speed. Slow, controlled. She won't give in to her body's desires just like that.

 Kylo Ren’s tongue, she imagines, is licking at her just like this – except she’s got no control over him, not like she has over her own fingers. He stops, slows, makes her wait. She’s agonisingly close, but he won’t let her come, not just yet –

She breaks, and a rush of release burns through her like fire.  

After she comes, all she sees is a vast expanse of fields, stretching out endlessly into the horizon – everywhere green, verdant, and lush. The blue sky, a strip of tarmac, and – for a brief moment – a descending transporter craft.

 _He’s there_ , she thinks. _He’s there._

 

 


	12. Dirt roads

The journey to the huwtha fields is by solar-van, one that is beaten up and rusted at the edges. They drive through what feels like mile after mile of cropland, both Joris and Kylo in the back of the car with four of the goons in the front seats. Bernhard hasn’t bothered to join them. His part is clearly the initial intimidation. Once they are in his power, it is apparent that he has nothing more to say to them.

The roads they take are local dirt-tracks, bumpy and undermaintained. Everywhere Kylo sees looks in need of repair. Occasionally they pass by an outbuilding or a warehouse, and they are always in a state of dilapidation with broken walls and loose-looking roofs. They are really in the back of beyond, he thinks to himself. This is about as backwater as the galaxy gets.

Just once he sees an insignia of the First Order, raised high above a grey slate-tiled outbuilding that, he supposes, is a supplies warehouse drop off. The black and white hexagon stands out against the landscape, stark, unfriendly.

He’s never been one for the countryside. Even when he was Ben Solo, he didn’t understand why people craved this sort of muddy ignominy, the thanklessness of it, the torpor and the smallness of it too. Small people with small lives. That’s what the countryside means to him.

Because if you have the whole galaxy to explore, why would you ever settle for tilling the land on some backwater planet in some backwater stretch of nothing?

He keeps his thoughts to himself. They haven’t been told how long the journey is going to be, but strategically, he thinks, if this is what Bernhard’s racket is always like, it should be a long journey. No point using the tarmac of landing area three as the capture point and then putting your prisoners within reach of that same point. You’d need to take them far away, so that even if they try to run, they’ve got nowhere to run to. Ideally you would make them so desensitised to their location they lose any sense of even the _hope_ of running.

They may even, he thinks, be deliberately driving a long route, to give the impression of distance.

If he were in charge, that’s how he’d do it. He’d have them going around in circles through fields that look the same, psychologically destabilising the victims as much as possible with a feeling that they are being taken so deep into the countryside that they’ll never get out.

He admires the simple efficiency of the scheme; its neat and smoothed over form of cruelty. It works. In some petty, small-minded way, it is an efficient system. Kylo Ren can respect that, even if he is the one on the receiving end of it.  

Next to him, Joris is looking out of their small window, seemingly lost in thoughts of his own. The other man is a steady, calm presence. Kylo can’t sense anything close to anxiety in him, despite the situation. If anything, he seems rather bored.

At some point, after an hour or so, one of the guards turns on a radio. It rattles out a few old hits that Kylo doesn’t recognise. He supposes they’re from Yadrin. The only music he ever knew well was from Alderaan. Compared to the elegant splendour of Alderaani music with its graceful concertos and poetic refrains, what they have on Yadrin sounds positively primitive.

Still, he listens passively to the music. He is meditating, running through an old practice that he hasn’t tried in a while, letting his thoughts flow in and out like the wind, catching the speed of them, they way they sometimes drift soft like the breeze, at other times take fierce hold like a storm. In the end, thought is all the same thing. There are ebbs and flows to its rhythm, but the basic elements of which it is composed never alter. This is the _sarath’na_ , the movement of wind. As he holds the meditation, his mind moves towards Rey.

Distant, she shines like a sunset through trees. He can feel her there, her life bound to his; his to hers. She is practising a Jedi form, Kylo thinks. He can feel the movement she is trying to reach – he knows what she is doing.

With her, he moves in time, from form to form. She can’t get where she needs to go, he realises. She can move her body the right way, but she isn’t able to fully capture the movement. No one has taught her how to do this, and without a teacher, she’s only miming a performance that she doesn’t understand.

He reaches out to her, trying to guide her without speaking. He imagines the movement, the way it looks and feels to be present in it. It is so easy for him, to give this to her. Uncle taught him this, and now he must teach it to her.  
  
Gracefully, he lifts her hand towards the sky, willing her to feel how she has to arch with her back, curling under, rising up... He's so lonely, he suddenly thinks. He's just been so terribly, awfully lonely for so long.

 _Kylo?_ She thinks. Her thoughts look to him like a reflection on water, both real and unreal, distant shapes and forms.   _Kylo, are you there?_

‘And now, the news at 4,’ a voice says on the radio, and Kylo snaps back immediately to where he is.

Next to him, he can see Joris is listening in too –  he’s not giving much away in his posture, but there is a palpable change in his attention too. Clearly both of them crave the connection to the outside world.

The first items concern Yadrin politics and roads, neither of which interest Kylo in the slightest. It sounds like the incumbent leader is about to be ousted due to a failure in her government’s attempts to legislate a beneficial trade agreement with Ultaraan, and it also sounds like no one wants to be driving through Halantir on the second exit road direction Valara this afternoon.

A brief next item gives him pause for reflection. Discussion is shortly to be underway with First Order representatives over developing a formal allied status relationship with Yadrin (as long as the prime minister can hold onto her position long enough to sign the documents). General life is expected to be unaffected by this change, the broadcaster says. Other than in that trade arrangements will be rendered a little more efficient. It looks like a brief moue of distaste crosses Joris’s features, but it’s gone before Kylo can process it.

The item ends and the last update of the day is about a singer called Bente Bomelac, who has – apparently – just announced her intention to move to Valera, because life in the capital has become too crowded and ‘fancy’ for her tastes.  Kylo sighs inwardly. A populist icon who proudly avers her hatred of any form of culture and sophistication. What else could he have expected from Yadrin?

Not for the first time, he wonders what’s happening on his ship. Has Hux’s assumption of power been smooth? How has it been communicated, and what changes will he already have made in the short time he has assumed the throne?

Kylo Ren knows something about assumption of power. Whatever Hux has planned, he will have had to do it fast. The first 24 hours are crucial. They are the hours that decide what the regime will be for its remainder, however long it will be. The decisions he takes now, his strategic choices, will come to define what sort of a leader he will be.

Outlawing the Force is a good move, Kylo supposes. He and Snoke traded on one type of power. Hux has another; if he expects to command, he will need to ensure that his kind of power is the only one that counts. He’ll have to strike hard and fast now to show that what he can do equals what Snoke and Kylo could do.

He’ll make a plan in due time, Kylo thinks. _All in due time._ He’s not forgotten that warehouse, the First Order drop off point. That means, whatever else there is in this shit-hole, there are deployments – which means there are soldiers doing the deploying and there are ships holding the soldiers.

Which means, as far as he’s concerned, there is opportunity.

They ride inexorably onwards, and by the time the van is slowing to a halt outside a simple series of huts, clearly a workers’ encampment, the sun is low on the horizon. Whatever work they will do in the fields, it will not be tonight.

‘Out,’ one of the goons says as another opens the back door of the van, and Kylo and Joris clamber out onto the ground, stretching as they do so, wincing slightly at the stiffness in their limbs. They have been in the solar-van for a good four hours.

‘Hut 12,’ the same goon says, throwing Kylo a rusted-looking key. ‘Space for two. Fresher included. Everything you need’s in there. The others’ll be back from the fields shortly. Work starts at 6.30, ends at sunset. What you do with the rest of the time is your own problem. The others will explain the rest.’

He gives them a nasty grin. ‘I’m sure it won’t take more than a couple of week to sort out the debt.’

With which, he lumbers back into the solar car, and with a wink to them, drives off, leaving a trail of dust in the van’s wake. Suddenly it is deathly quiet, just the sound of the fields, the soft wind rushing through the crops, the call of birds overhead, the crackle of leaves on the breeze.

Kylo and Joris look at each other.

‘Right,’ Joris says flatly. ‘Don’t know about you, but I need a shower.’

  
  
++++

 

The inside of hut 12 is, Kylo thinks, no worse on average than many places he’s slept in. He’s been training his whole life in the service of one master or another, which has meant sleeping in a range of huts and barracks in which the focus has most emphatically been on practicality rather than comfort. Where he slept when he was first Snoke’s apprentice was little more than a concrete slab in the corner of a cupboard. He’d nearly frozen to death there in winter, and it had taken him six months to realise that the way to get a better space was simply to kill someone and take theirs. That had been the lesson. He’d learned it well enough.

So hut 12’s dusty and broken beds, its fresher that barely runs to hot, and its holocaster that only connects with one channel (Yadrin 3) is actually rather pleasant, relative to that concrete slab. The walls are thin, and it’s clear that the heat is going to be lost in the night here, but Kylo can deal with that. The dirt and despair that permeates the place is also par for the course in his life. He’s lived for fifteen years at the epicentre of the galaxy’s despair. A few more nights in squalor won’t make any difference to him.

Outside, in the encampment, he counts another twenty-four huts in total, and there seems to be a central, slightly larger hut, which he assumes is communal. Although what kind of community this is going to be, he can’t imagine – not until he sees the others returning from the fields, transported in a series of solar-vans like the one he and Joris have just left.

Five vans roll up, their tires raking up the dust of the earth. The noise of them, set against the silence of the place, is alarming. It sounds like an earthquake. Kylo and Joris stand outside hut 12, watching their arrival at a cautious distance.

Both men are slightly tense. Even if the other people are in the same situation as them, they may not welcome outsiders. They may be allies of Bernhard in the group, Stockholm syndrome sufferers. There may simply be people with petty hatred in their heart towards anyone who is different to them. What is inside those vans is too difficult to predict.

A series of Bernhard’s men open up the van doors and a group of around twenty people pile out of them, women and men of all ages and types. They are all approximately humanoid, and all of them bear a look of extreme exhaustion. They gather in a small group at the centre of the camp, almost lining up. A few of them notice Kylo and Joris, registering them with surprise but still keeping their heads held low.

Two of the goons stand in front of them, crude looking maces in their hands.

‘Shoddy work,’ one says. ‘Too shoddy by half. Let’s hope your two new friends are going to improve your averages.’ He gestures bluntly over to Kylo and Joris, and now every eye in the place turns to them. ‘These two smashed up a few of Bernhard’s items. They’ll be working to clear their debt and correct their stupidity.’

Kylo grits his teeth. Acts of ritual humiliation to ensure dominance. It’s been a while since he was the one being humiliated rather than doing the dominating in this dynamic. Still, it was standard enough in the First Order, this particular power play.

‘Rations drop tomorrow,’ the other goon says. ‘For tonight you’ll just have to share what’s left with the two new ones.’

There is a slight grumble from someone, one of the workers, and the goon raises an eyebrow.

‘Don’t like it, talk to Artur,’ he says. ‘I’m sure he’d love to hear all about your complaints.’

 Silence falls.

‘Good,’ the man says, already moving back towards his van. ‘See you bunch of _pathtaks_ tomorrow for pickup.’

Once he’s inside, the solar vans drive off with a screech.

‘But where are Lisann and Elith?’ someone says, turning towards Kylo and Joris. The man speaking is young, probably in his late twenties, and speaks with an accent that Kylo can’t quite recognise. ‘The two women who pretended to be border guards. They’re not with you? They weren’t in the van?’

 ‘Yeah, where are they?’ someone else says, and her voice sounds anxious. ‘They should be back.’

Joris holds up his hand to try to steady the murmuring that is beginning to take hold in the crowd.

‘They didn’t come with us,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. We didn’t know they were your friends.’

‘Oh fuck,’ the man says. ‘Oh fuck, fuck. They must have kept them overnight.’

A sound of distress comes from the crowd, and Kylo feels a distinct unease that he doesn’t know what to do with, has no name for. He has a sudden, painful twinge of his connection to Rey, a vast sense of her presence, her need. He longs, inexplicably, to take her hand, to hold onto her.

‘Let’s get inside,’ another woman says. ‘No use standing out here.’ She walks towards Kylo and Joris and holds out her hand. ‘Emma Ithran. In the circumstances, sorry that I have to meet you.’

Joris shakes it. ‘Joris de Pal. Sorry that I have to meet you too, Emma. You’re going to have to explain a few things to us though, before I can understand exactly _how_ sorry I ought to be about all this.’

Emma nods her head. She has bright, lively eyes and hair that is pinned back tight against her head. She is tall for a woman, and Kylo can feel strength emanating from her of some kind – not the Force, but some other form of strength. She has purpose. She is, he thinks, a kind of leader here.

‘We’ll tell you what’s what. Let’s get inside the hall – some of us need to rest.’ She gives Kylo a brisk kind of nod. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Olos,’ he responds, feeling the strangeness of the name. ‘Olos Kid.’

‘Right you are, Olos Kid.’ Emma looks him up and down. ‘You’re strong, aren’t you?’

 ‘Yes.’

‘Good. Strength’s something we’re starting to lose.’

With that, Emma leads them inside the communal hut, and begins to explain their new life.

 


	13. The Light in Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Romance-y stuff kicks in here. You've been warned!

 

By nightfall, Kylo and Joris have learned all they need to know about the pitiful lives of those around them in this camp. There isn’t much to learn.

All of them have been coerced into slavery by one means or another. Most of them are ‘working off’ debts to Bernhard, although no one is stupid enough to believe that anyone’s really keeping count of how long they’ve worked and what sort of debt they might have paid off.

Some came as willing workers, but found that once they arrived, the costs of their housing and food were to be deducted from their wages for a fixed period, meaning that effectively, they received no payment at all. Others had their vehicles confiscated or destroyed and were likewise working off the debt of damaged goods.  None of them had a means of communication, or escape.

Food is tightly controlled, with simple rations dropped off once a week. The group either makes them last or kills each other over them. Their choice has been to make them last.

‘And anyway,’ Emma adds, as she tells them this. ‘We can scavenge. There are wild rabbits nearby the camp. There are edible grasses. We’re not totally dependent on their supplies, thank Kriff.’

Working in the fields means the collection of huwtha berries, a laborious and tiring job that hasn’t yet been automated (or if it has, the automation is more expensive than the use of slaves). Adequate collection means food. Inadequate collection means being beaten.

After sunset, until 06.30 the following morning, their time is their own. To Kylo, this seems absurdly generous. He has never had so much free time, not since he was nine years old. He can’t remember what he _did_ with free time. Did he used to read? Did he used to play, to draw? What on earth occupied his life, back when he had one? The idea of more than two hours of time for himself strikes him as almost unreasonable.

What really interests Kylo though is the figure of Artur.

It is Yannick, the younger man who had spoken to them first, who tells them about him. Hesitantly, his words stumbling as he tries to explain, he describes a man who can ‘do things’.

‘He’s the worst of it,’ he says, as some of the group are gathered around a central table. ‘It’s hard to explain but he… ’

‘He can just do things,’ Emma says, and her tone is grim. ‘Things we can’t fight.’

‘It sounds crazy,’ Yannick says. ‘Like we’ve been holed up in the fields too long, I know that, but Artur can … he can make things move without touching them, like…’

‘He just thinks things, and then they happen,’ another man says. ‘I saw it. He can hit you without touching you.’

‘He does other things,’ Emma adds. ‘Bad things.’

‘He’s got Lisann and Elith,’ Yannick says, and Kylo can hear the fear in his words. ‘I know he has. Sometimes he takes the women and he…’

‘They don’t always come back,’ Emma says. ‘Heanthe didn’t come back. He said he could choke the air out of someone just by thinking about it. He said he did that to her.’

 _Interesting_ , Kylo thinks. _Someone’s been learning how to use Force._

‘They’ll come back,’ Yannick says to her. He sounds like he is trying to comfort her. ‘Don’t worry, they’ll come back. Heanthe was different. She didn’t.... she wasn’t careful. All the others have always come back.’

Joris and Kylo remain quiet, only watching as Emma lets Yannick rest his hand on her shoulder. Between the two of them passes a look of understanding, and of what is unmistakably affection.

‘You’ll see,’ Yannick says. ‘They’ll come back.’

 

+++

 

After a simple meal, shared with the group, people begin to disappear to their own huts. Everyone is exhausted, weary after long days and months in the fields. Kylo feels their fatigue as if it is his own. An unfortunate side-effect of his recent forays into the Light is an increasingly developed empathy. Now, he can sense the distress, the sheer misery, around him and he is finding it harder to put a wall in place against it.

There are feelings he hasn’t had for a long time that are starting to surface in response. He doesn’t know the names for them, isn’t exactly sure what they are – but whatever they are, they don’t feel good. They feel like being back in his childhood, as if somehow he is being progressively erased, taken back to a time when all of this was different.

He really doesn’t feel good. He isn’t sure why he’s here, what plan he’s going to take. He isn’t sure what he’s supposed to _do_ with the way he feels. The whole experience is uncomfortable.

He isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do with feelings full stop. They are things he gave up when he left his uncle. No, more than just ‘gave up’. They were things he flat-out _stopped having_ at the precise moment when he took his lightsaber and he cut a child’s throat with it.

He still remembers that. It’d been the first person he’d ever killed. One of the other Jedi padawans, some whiny little kid. What was his name? Fifteen years since he’d thought about it.

David? Daniel? Dana?

He’d had brown hair and one of his teeth had been crooked, and he’d looked up at Kylo Ren as if he were coming to help. He’d had this open expression of trust, as if Ben was still his big brother, and his brother would always save him.

A lightsaber cut to the throat made more blood than Kylo had expected. And after that, he’d stopped with feelings altogether.

In the last 24 hours, he has been poisoned, left for dead, fallen into what appears – could he only remember it – to have been some kind of waking dream of the afterlife, overthrown as supreme leader, and ended up in indentured servitude on Yadrin because he can’t think what the fuck he wants to do.

It’s been a lot to take in. He isn’t sure he can deal with feelings as well. He isn’t sure, at some base level, who he even is, let alone what kind of feelings he might be having. Olos Kid, Kylo Ren, Ben Solo. He isn’t anyone. He just isn't.

This isn’t just about laying low. In the quiet, there’s not much else to think about except his situation. Which, when he looks at it coolly, he sees that there’s no reason that he couldn’t have already killed all these people, taken a ship, and used it to strategise. He doesn’t _have to_ be here. He has a lightsaber. He has power beyond anything on this planet.

The reason he’s here, really, when he strips it all away, is just that he doesn’t know who he is. He doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing. All he knows, if anything, is that he is no longer exactly the sum of feelings and experiences that made him Kylo Ren. in part, certainly, but not in entirety. 

The thought distresses him. If he isn't Kylo Ren, then who? What kind of answer can he expect to that question?

He waits until the evening is quiet and still and the others are asleep, including Joris, who is snoring peacefully at the other side of the hut. Then he goes outside, into the darkness, and breathes in and out Light.

It’s still everywhere, still so accessible. He can feel it everywhere, in everything. It breathes through the air, through the trees, the fields, the earth itself. Every atom of the earth, connected to every other. The whole universe in balance.

He can feel all of it, just _there_. Just as it always was.

And more than anything else, he can feel her. He reaches out to her, as if she were just close by, and it were as easy as that, an outstretched hand, a clasped finger. Palm to palm.

 _Rey_ , he thinks.

_Kylo?_

Her voice sounds thick with sleep, but she’s waking up.

_Kylo, are you all right? Where are you?_

_I’m fine._

He breathes in and out Light, and he lets the Force connect them. He isn’t in a rush, he knows he can’t manipulate this into being. He just lets it be as it already is, and that’s enough.

She’s visible now, standing in front of him. Her hair is down, and she is wearing a night-shirt. She looks  for a moment so vulnerably young that he wants to encircle her in his arms, to protect her.

 _I can see you but everything around you is dark_ , she says. 

A new impulse, that. Protection of others. Something else he’s not thought about for a long time. The sensation feels strange, like his self is no longer contained only in his own body, but is spreading out into other lives, other beings that are so intimately connected to him.

He’s not the only person alive anymore. It feels dizzying.

_I'm outside. I can't tell you where._

_Kylo_ , she says. _Ben. Just come to the resistance. We can protect you. Where are you? Let me help you._

 _No_ , he says. _I’d have a life sentence before I docked._

_We can work something out._

_No we can’t,_ he says, and suddenly he feels very tired. _I killed thousands of people, Rey. I enjoyed it. I shouldn’t be allowed to walk free on a resistance base. Don’t you see how dangerous it would be? For them, for everyone. I have things in me that don’t belong there._

_We could help you, take down Hux._

_And then what? I live out my days in the Light?_

She pauses only for the briefest of seconds.

_Why not?_

He doesn’t answer; doesn’t know what to say. He has a sudden, visceral feeling of her hand in his. He can feel the warmth of her fingers on his skin. There is temptation in it.

 _No,_ he says. _I want to keep talking to you. But I don’t want to do it that way. Don’t ask me where I am. I won’t ask you where you are._

She pauses again, and he can feel her sadness, and then her resignation.

 _Will you train me then?_ She says. _I can’t do it alone. I don’t know how to do any of this._

 _Yes_. _I can do that._

 _Okay_ , she says. She reaches out to him with her mind, and he can feel the warmth of it. He luxuriates in her touch, like a cat, like some frightened animal that’s forgotten how it feels to be held. He feels just like that when she touches him.

 _Don’t teach me Dark things,_ she says. _I don’t want it to be like that._

 _They’re not the only things I know_.

 _I know that._ She gives him almost a smile. _Teach me the other things._


	14. Day One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A massive thank you to everyone who has left kudos on this story. I am amazed that anyone out there can enjoy a story in which Kylo Ren is trapped farming berries and Force-meditating with Rey, but it seems that at least some people can!
> 
> This chapter contains a subtle rape reference (not by Kylo, thank goodness!) and so I have to give a warning on that front. Obviously it is also still a story about slavery (of different kinds). So there's that.

 

The work in the fields, as it turns out, is excessively tedious but not at all difficult. The first morning, Kylo and Joris are shaken awake by the hissing alarm that rings out across the complex. Kylo, years of training behind him, is immediately awake and ready to work. He’s used to not sleeping, to being at the behest of training schedules and drills. It _bothers_ him, but he pays the irritation no mind. The job is the job, and if that requires getting up, so be it.  

Kylo’s used to Snoke, after all. Being bothered and irritated by things was nothing compared to what could be done to you when you aggravated him by letting your irritation show. Kylo still has the scars from his first two years there, back when he was still young enough not to hide things as well as he can now. They are burned too deep to ever be erased.

 There is a simple enough breakfast of bread and water to be had in the communal hall, after which they are ferried by solar-van for some ten minutes, into a distant field that is full of long grass, nestled into which are strange winding plants that are heavy with glistening red and pink berries – it is these that they are looking for. Kylo recognises them. They are expensive, rare things. His mother used to eat them, slowly, one by one, savouring their taste. Foods fit for a princess, he supposes.

Now he knows what kind of life the people had who picked those berries for his mother. He wonders if she, with all her saccharine goodness, had known about it too. Would she have refused another bite if she had? 

One of the goons hands Kylo and Joris a basket, hand-held and simple.

‘Collect,’ he says, flatly, pointing at a crop of berries nearby. ‘No collection, no food. Simple. Basket full, side.’ He points again, this time to the side of the field, where five of Bernhard’s men are gathered, guns ostentatiously showing in their holsters. They are all sitting down around a portable holo set, watching what appears to be a sports competition of some kind and sipping on what smells to Kylo like coffee, or some similar stimulant. Next to them is a large container, presumably intended for berries that have been collected.

‘Problems,’ the guy says. ‘Side. Water, side.’

He smacks Joris with the basket, hard against his calf. It makes a resounding noise and Joris grits his teeth in obvious pain. Next to him, Kylo can feel the heat of Emma’s glare, directed towards the man. Clearly this one is a particularly unpleasant individual.

‘But don’t have any problems,’ he says. ‘Better for you.’

Were he still killing people, Kylo thinks, he’d kill this particular goon with especial relish. He’d savour the specific noise of the man’s skull cracking apart in his hands.

As it is, he takes the basket without comment and begins to collect berries. There is still dew on some of the hard ground, and it glistens gently as he watches it for a brief moment. The long grass rustles and whispers, and Kylo turns his thoughts away from the work, doing it mechanically, and instead he thinks of Rey.

Last night, they hadn’t done much in the way of training. Rather, he had asked to see what she could do.

 _If I’m going to teach you,_ he said. _I have to know what you already know._

Her eyes had been fierce, all sleep removed from them now.

_Do you want me to show you with my lightsaber first?_

_No,_ he said. _I already know how you fight with a saber. That’s not what Jedi training is. What did Skywalker teach you?_

 _How to reach out with the Force_.

_Good. Show me._

She had closed her eyes, which he thought they’d probably have to work on, given that closing your eyes in the heat of battle is one of those manoeuvres that all too often ends up with dead Jedi. But all in due time. He remembers what it was like when he was little. Sensing with the Force was almost impossible with his eyes open. It all takes time.

 Then suddenly he had felt her, her presence stretching out on the Force, flowing, impermeable, complicated. She glows with Light, but not pure white like his uncle. She moves through swirls and shades of blue-silver, eddies and whirls and the rushing of waterfalls that are made of oceans.

Strange for a girl from the desert, he thinks. That she should flow like so much water.

  _I can feel everything_ , she had said, her eyes still closed. _Living and dying. I can see you, too. You look like a shadow, but it’s all struck through with -_

 _Don’t worry about what I look like_ , he said, because he knows what she can see in him. _Worry about what I’m going to do next. Did he teach you that? How to see my intentions?_

 _No_ , she said. _There was no time._

Kylo Ren had moved towards her then, fast and hard. He raised his hand to her throat, and too late she put up her own hand against his, trying in vain to stop him. His fingers were wrapped around her little neck, softly, not squeezing. He could kill her in a heartbeat.

Instead, he released her gently.

 _You need to learn how to see with the Force, not just sense with it._  he said. _Otherwise you’ll die._

_So teach me that._

_Later_ , he says. _You need to show me everything you know first. We have to do this properly or not at all._

The whole session had gone much like that. He knows that Rey is powerful, but he also knows that she’s in a rush to learn, too much so. She wants it all now, all at once.

It’s going to take time to slow her down, he thinks. He has to go from the base up with her, even if it frustrates her. At the moment, she’s like a child who’s learned to drive a car but who doesn’t know how to walk yet, or even what a car really is. She’s doing it all on instinct and adrenaline, and at some point, that just runs out.

And at the point at which it runs out, Kylo thinks rather grimly, at that exact point is when some bastard like him steps in and presses his advantage and slits her throat.

Now he’s seen her in training, he knows that without his help, it’s a matter of time before someone kills her. She can’t keep fighting like she is, pushing frantically with the Force like she’s scared of it, trying to always direct it further, make it work twice as hard for her without her having learned anything new. She isn’t in the least bit secure of who she is, and she certainly isn’t a Jedi.

Not yet, anyway.

It was only at the end of the training that she had mentioned the books. Grudgingly, she had asked him about them in a half-hearted sort of way. Could he perhaps use them in the training, would they be important?

She showed him her collection then, guarding them to her chest like he might steal them, as if he needed to, as if he doesn’t already know what’s in those volumes by heart. They have to work on their trust of each other too, he thinks. She’s not certain enough of him for this to work. She’s saved him from dying, she’s put a certain amount of trust in him – but it’s not enough yet, nowhere near.

Not that he can exactly blame her for that.

 _I know the books already_ , he had said, trying to put her at her ease. _Maybe we should go through them sequentially. It’s how I learned._

 _I don’t –_ she had hesitated, awkward. _I don’t exactly understand them. I can do the forms, I can read the stories, obviously, but I don’t –_

_It doesn’t work like you think it should?_

_No, not really. I don’t think so._

_We’ll start with the Sasraham_  he says, indicating to the dark-coloured book in the centre of her small set. _It’s the one I learned first. Let’s go through it chapter by chapter, form by form. It’s the basis of everything._

She had blanched at the idea, looking at the length of the book. The irritation had shown through in her so plainly, and for his sins, Kylo Ren had tried, for the first time in a painfully long time, to be gentle towards another human being.

  _I’m glad you’re my student, Rey,_ he had said, which was true. _I’m glad I’m your teacher. It might take longer than you want, but I think it will be worth it, doing it like this._

 _I hope so_ , she said and she had smiled at him then.

 _I think I’m glad too,_ she said. She touched a hand to his shoulder, just lightly, just softly. _Wake me up again tomorrow night._

Then, in a soft rush of the evening’s breeze, she had been gone and he had been standing alone, the night sky above him shining as bright as the thousand stars it held.

 

_+++_

 

At the end of the first day’s labour, when the sun is starting to dip low, Kylo is firmly sick of huwtha berries, baskets, and the whole pointless endeavour he is in.

He is a productive employee, he can see that even without the surprised, irritatingly impressed glances he gets from the men when he returns yet another filled basket of berries.

It’s no surprise to him. He has naturally agile reflexes, strength, endurance. So he isn’t going to get _tired_ from this activity, nor cut his hands, nor become tangled in the knotweeds that grow around the untended fields, like some of the other workers seem to do, nor stumble on uneven ground or any of the other problems he’s noticed through the day. He isn’t going to become exhausted as the older workers do, their backs stooped and their faces hard-set in a mask of pain by the end of the day.

If anything, it’s under-taxing for him – physically, it’s not especially punitive compared to training against Snoke’s fighters, just bending down and up over and over again to grab at some berries. He’s not at risk of actual _death_ at any point, nor maiming, or any form of grievous harm. He isn’t being obliged to torture anyone or be tortured.

So all in all, slavery in a field probably trumps slavery in a barracks.

Mentally, however, it’s more painful because it gives him too much space for his thoughts – but after a while, he had lapsed into a state of meditative ease, letting his thoughts slow down, unwind themselves around any idea of selfhood he might have had, until he is so far away from this field that he can barely remember ever having been there.

Still, he’s glad when the solar-vans come to pick them up. Mostly because it means he’s close to seeing Rey again, close to being able to train her.    

It isn’t until he arrives back at the camp that he remembers the two women, the border guards, who hadn’t come home.

He only thinks of them at all because on the group’s arrival back to the basecamp, the two women are there, sitting by the food packages that have been left in the communal space – one of them, the older one, her face tightly drawn, is a mess of bruising. The younger one looks relatively unharmed, but she’s still clutching herself tightly, as if she might at any moment collapse into dust unless she holds on tight to her own body. They have been dropped off with the food supplies, like an unwanted parcel.

He sees Yannick run towards them.

‘Lisann!’ he shouts, to the older one, the one who had spoken most to Kylo and Joris during the borders and landing performance. She, Lisann, looks up, and there is an ugly scratch down her face, like a claw mark. Her throat is red-raw with a nasty looking bruise. 

‘Lo Yannick,’ she says, and her voice is scratchy. ‘See, we’re not dead after all.’

Next to her, the younger woman, lets out a barely suppressed, gulpy kind of cry. It is Emma who is there first, her arms around her before she can let out a second cry.

‘It’s all right, Elith,’ she says. ‘Hey, shush. You made it back. You’re all right. I’ve got you.’

The girl cries in earnest now, rocking herself back and forwards. 

‘I saw Artur,’ she says, gulping for breathe. Her voice is full of the sickness of fear. ‘He did that – that, thing.’

Emma keeps a protective arm around her and Kylo realises, with a jolt, that this Elith can’t be more than eighteen. Without her border guard uniform, she looks young, younger than Rey, younger than he even remembers having been. She is just a child. 

‘He’s not here now,’ Emma says briskly. ‘He doesn’t come here. It’ll be okay.’ She turns her attention to the wider group, most of whom are milling around the returned women, looking uncomfortable and tired. ‘You lot get yourselves unloading the food supplies. You know what to do. Let’s not crowd them.’  
  
There are general murmurs of agreement and movement, but Kylo stays where he is, listening in. He wants to hear more about this Artur, this baby Sith that the countryside has spawned. It’s a professional curiosity, of sorts.

‘But how can someone do that?’ Elith says, her voice lower now but no less fraught with pain. ‘It was… I could feel him hitting me, but he wasn’t touching me. He- he’ She chokes the next words out. ‘He said it was just a warning. That he could do other things.’

 _How interesting_ , Kylo thinks.

‘It felt like he could control the air,’ she said. ‘He was so strong.’

‘It’s all right,’ Emma says.

 ‘He said he could turn my bones inside out,’ she says. ‘Right like that. And I let him… I had to…’

‘It’s all right,’ Yannick repeats at Emma’s side, very gently.  ‘You didn’t do anything wrong, Elith love. It’s all him. Not you.’

‘He did things,’ she says, and Kylo can hear in her voice exactly the things that this Artur has done to her, and the thought of it makes him feel like screaming.

He knows exactly. Every bit of it. In his mind, instinctively, he reaches out for Rey. Her presence, solid and warm, alive. He holds on to the thought of her, although he doesn’t know why he does.

Next to him, Joris puts an arm on Kylo. He too has drifted to the side, listening to Elith’s story.

‘We shouldn’t be listening to this bit,’ he says, firmly but quietly. ‘Come on Olos. Whatever this Artur is, whatever he’s done, we can talk about it later.’

Kylo just nods. Together, the two men walk away, towards the larger group, and begin to help to organise the food supplies.

That night at dinner though, no one talks about Artur at all. The room is mostly silent, people lost in the darkness of their own thoughts, the misery of their own prisons. Whatever Artur is, whatever he can do, it clearly isn’t a topic that anyone wants to bring up, and neither Joris nor Kylo have the courage or stupidity to ask. Silence, it turns out, is the easiest thing in the world.


	15. Shame

This night, she’s not dressed for sleep. When he reaches out to her, she answers to him almost immediately. He can feel her drawing towards him, like an ocean tide. There is so much presence in her. All the time he’s aware of it. Dimmer or brighter, but that presence never stops shining.

They stand together there, in their different darknesses. Her stance is strong, ready to fight. In her hand, she has her lightsaber. He draws his own. It glows pale against the night, less red than he remembers it. Wielding it again, even after just two days, feels strange. There’s so much power in it.

 _Chapter one_ , she says, bringing her lightsaber to push against his. He pushes back, not hard. Just companionable. A warning, a beginning.

 _Chapter one doesn’t actually need a saber_ , he says, attempting what he hopes is a smile. _Unless the book’s changed since I last read it._

She lowers her sabre, slowly.

 _It’s about the Force_ , he says. _The idea of balance. That’s central to everything._

_I know that already._

She sounds exactly like he did when he was nine years old and being a snot in training, he thinks. What he needed then was a surprise approach, something that K’than would have thought of. Anything but Luke’s passive acceptance of it; anything but the long processions of weary-looking bearers of Light who sighed heavily but never condemned.

So without any better ideas, he reflexively moves towards her, and although she immediately reactivates and swings her saber at him, he can dodge it easily this time. Catching her at her side, he lifts her off the ground, his hand around her waist, tilting her by her leg so that her saber is pointed away from him.

 _So balance_ , he says to her as she’s struggling to right herself, to break free of his grip. _If you know it all already, that is._

He puts her down, gently.

 _You’re not going to learn anything if you think you already know everything,_ he says patiently, and he isn’t sure if he’s talking to her or to the nine-year-old boy he used to be _. Watch this._

With his mind, he lifts his sabre up, so that it floats calmly in mid-air. It looks so peaceful like that, its smooth red line floating in the darkness. It almost makes him feel like he’s a Jedi, using his saber like this, letting it out of his grip, letting her touch it. He holds it steady, and on top of its hilt, he places her hand.

 _Unbalance it_ , he says. _We’re going to learn that._

Then her eyes go wide and she suddenly looks at him as if he’s going to reveal the secrets of the universe to her. His throat clenches.

None of this feels anything like he thought it would.

  
+

 

Kylo and Joris are working at opposite ends of the field, which means that Kylo doesn’t speak to anyone at all.

He’s ready to give Joris something like a chance, but he isn’t sure about the rest of these people. They look too much like slaves to him. Other than Emma, they all look and seem so cowed, so hopeless. 

He doesn’t understand it. The slump in their walk, the way they all let the guards manhandle them, don’t talk back, don’t even _try_ to think about escaping or changing anything _._ They all just grind onwards, stooping lower and lower with every day. One day, these people will simply die here and then their bodies will be nothing but the dirt they’re moving towards.

He can feel a lot of things in them. Distress, pain, exhaustion. He’s learning the names for those feelings again. But he isn’t ready to reach out deeper into them, or look at them too closely, or get in any way actively involved with the experience of having them. So he doesn’t talk to anyone except Joris and Emma.

Even when Lisann tries to engage him in a brief conversation, asking him where he’s from, he cuts her off with a curt response and doesn’t ask her anything back. He doesn’t care where she’s from. For now, he’s content with not killing her for her part in the borders and landing show. As far as social grace goes, that’s about all he’s got right now.

Considering who he used to be, he thinks, it’s still quite something.

To pass the time, he breathes in and out Light, meditating on the way the long grass rustles in the wind, the way the sky looks, the smell of the huwtha berries in his hands. His own body. His physicality, as he occupies this one brief moment between the two vast spaces in which he didn’t exist and he won’t exist. How short and wonderful it is, this tiny moment wedged in between such vastness that belongs to him. The shape of his hand, the feel of each tendon as it moves to lift one berry, the next, the next.

The more he does it, the harder it is to tune out pain. The signal of it interferes with the Light, like static blaring through a radio. At the other side of the field, Elith radiates her own pain, white-hot and sharp, stained with blood. All around him, everywhere, there is blood.

Everything here aches.

But the fields are the same, the routine is the same. He tries to focus away from it. Back to the crops, the grass, the sun, the sky. The distant trees, the birds overhead.

They work for eleven hours of the day, stopping only for a brief rest at midday when the sun is at its height. Kylo splashes water on his face with the rest of the group, cools off, but he keeps his distance from the conversations.

When they have finished with one field, they move onto the next. When the sun begins to lower, they move to the solar-vans, and then to the camp.

On the second night, they eat together, with Emma distributing the rations out carefully. She has made an informal kind of rota for the hunt and sourcing of other food, and Kylo is ready enough to do that. He and Joris volunteer together and she agrees.

Then, finally, he and Joris go back to Hut 12, which is already feeling about as homely a place as Kylo is used to having. His socks are over one of the chairs, and they both have some extra clothes, left over from previous occupants. He asks about his plan, what his intentions are for leaving this place.

‘I’ll tell you when the time comes,’ Joris says. ‘It’s not quite yet. Need a few more things.’

‘You can trust me,’ Kylo says, which is almost true.

‘I know.’ Joris gives him a grin. ‘After all, why wouldn’t I trust a man on the run from people so dangerous he prefers jumping out of burning shuttles to meeting them?’

‘Well…’ Kylo says, but he isn’t sure how to answer. His joking skills are still pretty minimal, although he’s tried to remember a few of the ones that Han used to know.

‘Oh, Olos,’ Joris says, half laughing. ‘All I can say is that I don’t intend to live out my days as a farm labourer on Yadrin, and I hope neither do you.’

‘No,’ Kylo says flatly.

‘Well then.’ Joris gives him another smile. ‘It’s in our interests to keep our eyes open for opportunities, isn’t it? And I promise that I’ll tell you the ones I’ve seen when I’m a bit more sure they really are opportunities.’

‘And until then, we wait?’

Joris nods. ‘Sure. And with only Yadrin 3 for company, no less.’ Saying which, he turns on the holocaster, to what appears to be a long-running story about a family from Yadrin that’s full of nothing long-lost relatives, missing children and unpleasantly incestuous dynamics.  Joris kicks off his shoes and lies down on his bed, apparently rapt in the series, drinking it in with whole-hearted enjoyment.

‘I mean, look at this Olos,’ he says cheerfully. ‘Do you suppose by any chance at all that mysterious stranger is going to be her long lost son Frank? With plotlines like this, who’d ever want to leave Yadrin?’

Kylo looks out of the window instead. He’s only here, he thinks, the only _purpose_ to any of this, is because in four hours’ time he’ll be able to talk to Rey.

  
  
+

 

On the fifth evening, they are all gathered round the table, Joris and some of the other workers, talking amongst themselves about various things, playing a card game that he vaguely remembers from his childhood, something Han was good at playing.

It seems that they often kill time playing cards – how they found the pack, who managed to smuggle it in, he doesn’t know. It’s his first time joining, but he doesn’t mind it as much as he expected he would. After all, it’s better than sitting alone in the hut with only Yadrin 3 for company and it doesn’t require him to do much talking.

Somehow, the conversation turns to the First Order. One of the younger men says that he knows for a fact that the First Order has overthrown the Galactic trading agreement because they want to be able to add cheaper but unsafe ingredients to food supplies, and someone else says that they heard the same thing.

The general tone and tenor of the conversation is one that Kylo recognises uncomfortably from his days around his mother’s table – low level dissent and rumour-spreading about a bigger and more powerful organisation. Except at this table, there isn’t his mother, and so there isn’t anyone who actually does anything about the rumour spreading. Instead, it just drifts on, growing in size, each rumour becoming a little more fearful than the last.

The First Order works, he thinks, and not for the first time, because no one really knows what it does. It’s just an idea. People turn it into their own worst nightmares of control and suppression, or their own greatest fantasies of control and stability, depending which way they fall. In itself, it isn’t really _anything_. Just a vector.

Still, he thinks. You could say the same about the resistance. You could say the same about basically any political movement.

But then, it comes.

‘You know that bloke Kylo Ren?’ Yannick says, his tone lowering, and Kylo’s heart stutters for a brief, wild moment. ‘The one who overthrew Snoke? They say he could move stuff with his mind too. Like, Jedi stuff…’

‘He’s not a Jedi,’ Joris says quietly. ‘No way.’

‘Why not?’

‘Jedis didn’t work with the First Order, I don’t think,’ Emma says crisply, laying down two of her cards in the centre of the table. ‘Twenty-two. Whatever he is, if he really is like that, he’s surely more like a – what’s that other one, the opposite of Jedi?’

‘Snith,’ someone else says. ‘I fold.’

‘Snith, right,’ Emma says. ‘He’s more like a Snith.’

‘Sith,’ Kylo corrects, against his own better judgement. His heart is still hammering in his chest and his mouth feels dry. ‘I think it’s Sith.’

‘Whatever it is, it makes me feel all cold inside,’ Yannick says. He lays down two of his own cards. ‘Seven and nine, sixteen. Imagine someone like that as your enemy. You’d be torn to shreds before you even lifted your sword. You can’t win against that kind of power. He’d be just like Artur, but a thousand times worse.’

Joris is radiating a kind of anxiety that Kylo can’t quite place. He isn’t exactly _scared_ , but there’s something fierce in him, something that urges him to speak.

‘Yeah,’ he says and he sounds tense, ‘but you know what? Imagine someone like that as your friend. A Jedi, I mean. Imagine that too, because whatever Artur is, he’s not the only kind of person out there with power. It’s not all on his side.’

‘Yeah,’ Yannick says wistfully. ‘They’d be able to stop Bernhard and Artur from doing this, wouldn’t they? It’d be like….’ He mimes a fight with his hands, pushing air in and out of his palms.

 Kylo’s heart is still racing, but now it’s mixed with something else, something that feels less easily placed, something deeply uncomfortable inside him.

‘Bam,’ someone else says. ‘Can you imagine Artur’s face if he ever met someone who could do more than him?’

‘Shit though,’ Yannick says. ‘Imagine if Artur got that strong himself. The things he’d be able to do…’

‘Luckily for us,’ Emma says, ‘There aren’t any other people like him around to train him. At least not on Yadrin. No one important’s ever going to come to this shit-hole.’

Elith, who has kept quiet all through this, suddenly speaks. Her voice is so soft that Kylo nearly has to strain to hear it.

‘There’s no one to stop him either,’ she says. ‘There’s no one who’ll ever stop him.’

Her hand touches instinctively against her own skin, and she pulls her body tightly into itself, stroking her arm reflexively, comforting herself. It is clear that this conversation is bringing her a very deep and very raw pain. She is the one that Artur prefers. She is the one that he likes best.

Looking at her, Kylo, the strongest user of the Force to exist in the known galaxy, the bearer of Light, and the last trained Jedi alive, feels something that he can now distinctly remember as _shame._

He catalogues the emotion under the ever-increasing category of things that he still has the capability to feel. It’s pretty bad, this one.

‘Who knows,’ Joris says. He shrugs sadly, and then breaks the mood. ‘Anyone for a game of Pa’lath instead? I think Emma’s won this one.’

In the circumstances, Kylo is profoundly grateful to just play cards. He doesn’t know Pa’lath, but he’s sure he can figure it out just fine. It takes him an hour before he realises that he’s been shaking the whole way through this conversation. His skin is clammy with sweat.

 

+++

 

That night, he and Rey don’t fight. He isn’t in the mood for it, perhaps even can’t bear it.

Instead, he suggests they just read together, following the forms in the chapter but not going through the full practice. It’s the one he really hates, the introductory verses on generosity of spirit and compassion for all beings. It’s the absolute last kriffing chapter he can cope with right now.

It’s starting to take its toll, all this Jedi stuff. It’s everywhere now, in him, in her. It’s getting impossible to live this way, he thinks, like he’s a qualified Jedi master, like he can really do this.

Training her like he’s good enough to do it, like he has the slightest right to teach anyone, ever, how to walk in the Light? How can he possibly teach someone about compassion for all beings when he himself has had none at all?

The image of that little boy’s face flashes in front of his eyes. _Daniel_ , he thinks. _It was definitely Daniel._

 _Is something wrong?_ Rey says. She looks at him, simple and open in her gaze. _Are you injured? Is that why you don’t want to fight?_

 _I think I just need to take a break_ , he says. _Reading’s fine, but not more. There are things going on where I am. It’s not always easy._

_You won’t tell me where or what things?_

_No_ , he says. _I can’t do that._

 _All right._ Rey puts her lightsaber down on the ground and sits in front of him, cross-legged, inviting him to join her there with an open wave of her hand. _We don’t always have to train. I get tired too. Just talk to me about something else, if you want to. That’s okay._

_Like what?_

She gives him a nervous, shy smile. It affects him more than he wants to think about, when she smiles like that.

 _Tell me what it was like at the temple,_ she says. _What was it like to be trained with other people? Were they all as strong as you? What did you eat? Did you learn other things, normal school things?_

  _You miss Skywalker_ , he extrapolates. _You want me to talk about him._

 _Yeah, I miss him. He was pretty…_ Rey pauses, clearly torn. _Actually, he was pretty weird. And the first time I met him, he threw the lightsaber I brought him over a cliff._

_Really?_

Kylo struggles to imagine it. He was used to his uncle’s sanctimonious passivity, his reclusiveness, and his pressure-cooker explosion approach to conflict that left everything simmering until it was too late to stop it from bursting out in flames (see point in case: near attempted murder of nephew). But he could never have imagined him, in all his strangeness, throwing a lightsaber off a cliff.

 _Really,_ Rey says. _When I first met him, he’d totally given up using the Force. He was drinking disgusting milk from an alien teat and catching fish on a pole._

He sits down opposite her and she just smiles at him, warm and present.

 _Kriff, you have seriously no idea how disgusting that milk looked,_ she says, and Kylo, without even truly knowing why, reaches out for her open hand and holds it tight in his own. He thinks he can feel something in his eyes but he doesn’t understand the first thing about what it is.


	16. Chapter 16

On the tenth evening, he and Rey are reading about K’than.

It is another story that Kylo remembers from his childhood. Even before he trained with Luke, he was being read Jedi bedtime stories. As he opens the chapter, he tells Rey that he used to have a picture of the story on his wall, when he was very young. It had been painted by a Jedi friend of his Uncle’s. Rey half-smiles at that, but doesn’t say anything in return.

She seems tense tonight, ill at ease and tired and her left shoulder looks stiff, like she’s been injured. He can see her discomfort as they move through the forms that begin the chapter.

Kylo wonders what happens wherever she is, when he’s not with her. What kind of life she is leading, out there with the Resistance. Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to be going easy on either her muscles or her spirit.

Now he’s seeing her far more often, he’s aware of a pervasive kind of frustration in her. He thought it was just her Jedi training, but it’s more than that. It’s a disenchantment with her life, and below that disenchantment is rage, burning red.

Once upon a time, he would have offered her an empire. Now, all he can offer is a story.

 _K’than_ , he reads, _was climbing up a great mountain, so high that she ascended far into clouds. She had only a crudely-hewn stick and a pack on her back, which was made from old rags and full of nothing but wet leaves and dirt and small stones, left over from the food she had taken from the earth._

_At the peak, she met a great warrior. He was a fearsome man with a long beard and eyes full of fire. He had slain many hundreds. In his hand was a sword._

_K’than greeted the warrior with kindness, but he looked down upon her because of her crude clothing and simple appearance. He didn’t greet her in return, but challenged her to duel. He thought that it would be fun to push an old peasant woman off a high peak._

_I will duel with you, K’than said. But not only with my stick but with all the things I have in my pack._

_She showed him the leaves and dirt and stones, and the warrior laughed._

_I accept your challenge, he said. He raised his sword._

_K’than smiled. She immediately threw the dirt of her pack in the warrior’s eyes, blinding him. Then K’than flung the damp leaves from her pack underfoot, making the rocks of the mountain slippery so that he lost his footing. She used her stick to push him so only his hands clung on to the edge of that great precipice._

_His powerful sword tumbled from his hand as he stared at his opponent. It clattered down the mountainside._

_You fight like a dirty child. You had no rules for the respect of combat, he roared, and his fury echoed so that it shook the mountain. But K’than only laughed._

_Neither did you, she said. You challenged an old woman with only a stick and some dirt on her side while you had a mighty sword and all your strength._

_Then, with swift throw, she launched one of the little rocks from her pack at his trembling and slipping hand. With a final cry, he fell down the mountain and was never seen again.  K’than descended the mountain in peace._  
  
Near to the summit she found the fallen warrior’s sword, wedged firmly into a crevasse in the rocks. K’than picked it up, polished it carefully, and used it to hook an apple from a nearby tree.

 _She bit into the apple and it tasted as sweet as any she had ever eaten.  After she had finished, she threw the sword into a lake, where it rusted and, in time, where its open and decaying hilt became nothing but a home for fish._  


‘See? You shouldn’t underestimate people,’ Rey says, after they have finished reading it. ‘Especially ones with stones.’

 ‘What do you think it means?’ he asks her.

She smiles darkly. ‘That when you’re up against someone more powerful than you, you have to use whatever you’ve got.’

 ‘Right,’ Kylo says. ‘Jedi are supposed to be able to use whatever they have. It doesn’t have to be a lightsaber. It doesn’t have to be a sword. And there might be times when you have to fight against someone who has a lot more than you do, so you need to be resourceful.’

‘And you don’t have to fight fair, if you’re in an unfair fight,’ Rey adds. Kylo isn’t surprised she picked up on that one, although he’d put it slightly differently. He nods.

‘I’d say that it means fighting fair isn’t only about the formal rules of combat. It’s about choosing an opponent who is your equal. But if you’re in a hugely unequal fight that you didn’t choose to be in, you might have to try to equalise it however you can.’

He pauses, reflecting. ‘Even then, you give your opponent a chance. K’than showed the warrior what she had in her pack. She still tried to make it a fair fight, to observe the rules.’

Rey’s look is suddenly challenging. Now they’re coming to it. ‘Right. Choosing an equal? Like the First Order do, you mean? When they bomb civilians?’

He blinks.

‘They’re not Jedi. They’re not trying to be Jedi.’

‘But you are,’ Rey says irritably, and he realises, too late, that he has touched a deeper nerve than he suspected. ‘You apparently learned this. You _know_ , you _knew_ , what a fair fight means. Kriff, you just told me that you read you this story when you were four years old. You’ve always known.’

‘Life’s not as simple as it is in a children’s story,’ Kylo says flatly. ‘There were other factors.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t have to explain myself to you.’

Rey blazes with a sudden wellspring of fury.

‘Yes you do,’ she says, and the words seem to come from very deep within her. 

‘Some day, you have to explain to me how you went from being the K’than in this story to being the other guy, the monster who uses a sword to attack people who haven’t got anything except a few bits of dirt and leaves. Some day you _do_ have to explain it.’

Kylo pauses, trying to steady the rush of emotions that are flooding him. He doesn’t answer her, doesn’t know how to answer her.

‘I don’t understand it,’ she goes on. ‘You knew all this Jedi stuff, and you never forgot it, even as you were doing all those terrible things. It’s not like you even _disagree_ with these ideas, not on any level that I can see.  So how could you live with yourself? How could you do those things, and still believe in all of this?’

‘I don’t know,’ he says flatly. ‘I didn’t live with myself. I changed who I was.’

‘But you didn’t! When you talk to me, when we’re training, it’s so obvious that you’re still Ben Solo. You’re not some _other person_ at all. You can’t change your name and just become a different person. It doesn’t work like that.’

‘It’s not a mask,’ Kylo says and she glares at him, tension etched into her every line. He wills himself not to be tense in return, to answer her as best as he can. He’s seen this conversation coming from the moment they began training together, and he know that if nothing else he owes her the best that he can do.

 ‘You want to believe that Kylo Ren is just a mask over Ben Solo. But people don’t have true selves like that, not the way you’re thinking of it. They _are_ the things they pretend to be. I am Kylo Ren. Or I was. And I was Ben Solo too. There’s no mask.’

‘But how could you do any of it?’ she says again. ‘There was just so much that you did.’

‘I know,’ he says and he suddenly feels very tired.

‘There’s nothing that can make it right,’ she says.

‘No. There’s nothing.’

‘This isn’t like in the stories.’

‘Nothing in reality is like it is in stories,’ he says. ‘Things are always more complicated.’

‘Then why are we reading them?’

‘Because they help us to understand anyway.’

He thinks that she has tears in her eyes.

‘I wish it could be like a story,’ she says. ‘Sometimes. Good guys and bad guys.’

‘So good always triumphs?’ Kylo asks, with a grim half-smile. ‘The bad guys always fall off mountains?’

She shakes her head. ‘No. So that I’d at least know which one someone is.’

‘Sometimes you know that,’ he says, gently. ‘Don’t start to think that Kylo Ren wasn’t the bad guy, Rey. Don’t ever think that.’

Her voice wavers slightly. ‘I don’t think that.’

‘I think you do.’ He looks straight into her eyes now, direct and open. ‘I didn’t regret the things I did as Kylo Ren. Not at the time I was doing them anyway. I wasn’t conflicted. It wasn’t difficult for me to choose what I did.’

‘You must have had doubts.’

‘Not many,’ he says. ‘Occasional moments. But in fifteen years, my doubts never stopped me. It wasn’t until recently that I started to see things differently. But for all that time, I was the bad guy. Don’t make that into something it isn’t. Don’t turn it into a different story in which deep down I was still a good person as I did those things.’

‘You help me,’ she says. ‘You’re different now.’

‘Sure,’ he says. ‘I’m different now. But that doesn’t change who I was then, and it never will. That’s not how this works.’

She gives him a watery smile. ‘You’re the good guy and the bad guy?’

‘I’ve been both.’

‘And now?’

‘I don’t know,’ he says and his voice isn’t quite steady. ‘I don’t know now. Neither. Both.’

Rey just nods.

‘Okay,’ she says, slowly and with meaning in her tone that he can’t quite decipher. She holds out her hand to Kylo, and surprised, he takes it in his own. She squeezes his fingers.

‘It’s all right that you don’t know,’ she says. ‘As long as you’re not only Kylo Ren. Then I can live with it.’

‘No, I’m not only Kylo Ren,’ he says. ‘I’m not just him.’

She smiles and squeezes his hand again. Her eyes are bright.

‘Then I can live with it.’

 

 

 

 

 

 


	17. Kindness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very short update / teaser, but an important moment. Thank you as always for lovely feedback and riding along with me on the path of this story!

On the eleventh day, for the first time in more than fifteen years, Kylo Ren does something kind. It’s a small thing really.

For a while he has noticed that Lisann is clearly at the limit of what her strength can do. For obvious and not always pleasant reasons, Kylo has a good sense of when someone is at the end of their physical limits and he can see all of the signs in her.

She looks hardy enough on the outside, but internally she’s struggling. He can see the beginnings of arthritis in her fingers, and her back looks like it’s twisted. She radiates a low melody of pain that he recognises. It’s the same one that prisoners always have. Low-level, persistent neglect, weakening of the body, weakening of the spirit.

He knows that one.

He watches her calmly, as they work in silence. Joris, at his other side, is humming a strange tune that Kylo thinks he knows, but he can’t quite place. The other man seems thoroughly blithe, for all the privations of their new life. Anyone would think he enjoyed indentured servitude.

Lisann crouches down to gather a berry, a slight groan in her throat, and Kylo – just with a light move of his fingers – feels for the bones in her back, curious, undetermined as to whether he wants to break, repair or merely examine them.

He can feel the jarring click of them, the place where something is tense and violent. The Force answers to him so easily here. It’s no more difficult for him than taking off his shoes or brushing his hair. He adjusts, gently, the place where he can see brokenness, willing connectedness and strength in its place. The move of the Force rushes soft and kind, the same way the huwtha crops sway in the light breeze.

He has so much strength, he thinks. It runs off him in waves. He can afford to give some of it away.

Lisann sighs, suddenly. She stands up straight, moving at ease. She looks years younger.

‘That song must be cheering me up,’ she says to Joris. ‘I feel pretty good.’

Joris grins at her. ‘It’s an old folk melody about a freighter captain who falls in love with a girl from Teresthe. Just your kind of tune, Lisann.’

She snorts, and they carry on working.  The unexpected tightness in Kylo’s throat is, he is sure, just a reaction to some stray pollen.


	18. Nothing but Show

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After quite a long absence, here is some PLOT! I continue to be amazed by the interest in this fic and thank anyone out there for enjoying it. It makes me really happy to know people like reading something that came out of my fevered brain ;)

 

 

Later that afternoon, Kylo finds himself talking to Lisann. She is in an ebullient mood, no doubt because of her sudden lack of pain, and even to Kylo there is something in her good mood that is infectious.  
  
He very deliberately isn’t thinking about what he’s done, the obvious joy he’s created in someone else. He certainly isn’t thinking about the balance of that tiny bubble of joy set against all of the pain he’s caused at other times to other life forms. He’s choosing to just breathe in and out in the present moment, in which – at least – there is a little more happiness in the world.

So, stooped low, Lisann tells him, soft in case Bernhard’s men overhear, that she has been here for twenty months and was one of the first to be caught.

‘Back when I started, there were just six of us,’ she says. ‘I came with Elith. She’s my family. My cousin’s daughter. We were meant to be travelling to Yagrad, to pick up some seeds at the Bergerat and we had to take a byway. They intercepted us on the road, blocked our car.’

‘Was Artur there?’

She sighs. ‘No, not on the road. He was around in the base, I suppose. You know, Olos, that Artur…’ her thoughts trail off, as she lowers her voice still further. ‘The others say I’m mad, but I don’t believe in half of it.’

‘You don’t believe in the Fo- in his powers?’

She gives a wide grin. ‘I believe in the Force all right. We’re still literate, even way out on Havantine. I don’t mean that, son. More like, he says he can do all these things. Choking you, ripping your skin out, all very dramatic. But none of us ever sees him do it.’

She shrugs. ‘I reckon he can only do half of what he pretends. He’s a big man. I grew up in a place with plenty of big men like him, fanning out their feathers like peacocks, getting the girls to look at them. Half of it’s just for show. Course, not that it’s a help to my Eli. He can still do more than enough to hurt her.’

‘I’ve seen,’ Kylo says carefully.

He doesn’t like to think too much about Elith and what’s been done to her, not anymore. Not since he’s started training Rey, not since all of this. He’s started to notice, late at night after he comes back from training with Rey, that Elith is still awake. He can feel her energy, fraught and fractured, as she paces up and down in the hut she shares with Lisann. Sometimes he can even hear the soft tread of her feet on the floor as he passes. He doesn’t think she sleeps.

‘Aye, well.’ Lisann stoops to gather some more berries. ‘We’ve all seen here. There’s more than enough of it to see. But since we got Emma, things have lightened a touch. And now we’ve got you two, things have lightened a touch more.’ She gestures over to Joris at the other end of the field, who appears to be recanting what is obviously an amusing story to a group of interested onlookers. ‘That one’s a balm, isn’t he?’

Kylo watches him, seeing the warmth of him, the strength behind it. As the days have gone on, he has grown to appreciate Joris more and more, his social gentleness and his good-humour. He puts people at their ease, which is a skill that Ben and Kylo and for that matter Olos have never had.

Sometimes at dinner, he listens in to Joris’s conversations, the way he naturally encourages people to tell him their secrets, and how he listens to it all without prejudice.

It’s something that Kylo is growing to realise is a different kind of power to one he’s ever known. The closest thing he can think of his was father, the quick-talking way in which he could spin a friendship out of nothing but a few moments of chance.

His father. That is, he means Ben Solo’s father. Things are getting so awfully blurred. Again, he looks back to Joris, who gives him a little half-wave and a smile.

‘Yes,’ he says to Lisann. ‘He’s definitely a balm.’

+

 

As the sun dips low, and he is thinking about what he will train with Rey that evening, his head full of the Jedi texts he had thought were no longer his to know, there is an unmistakeable sound of a solar pulling up, its tires heavy against the dirt and gravel of the country roads.

 It doesn’t like the usual solar-vans in which they are driven in and out of the fields. It is a smoother, more aggressive sound. And sure enough, it pulls the corner and he recognises the First Order insignia, stencilled firmly onto the side of the off-roader. The sight of it makes his fist clench, involuntarily.

He hates them, he thinks suddenly, and the vehemence of the thought catches him by surprise.  Isn’t it only Hux that he hates?

Already he is gathering strength, calling the Force to him. Instinctively, he is straightening his posture, preparing. He realises that he is tense. Has he always been tense, in the First Order? He isn’t sure when in the last twelve days he started to slouch, to not always be prepared to fight, to be attacked.

There is general murmuring around the workers, and he notices that Bernhard’s men have stood up from their usual position at the side of the field, and have turned their radio off. Clearly they were not expecting this either.

‘Inspection,’ Lisann says at his side. ‘They come by every half year or so.’

‘What are they inspecting?’

She gives a gnarled kind of smile. ‘Whatever takes their fancy. Sometimes they just cream off a few supplies. They give out some paperwork to say this is a… legitimate operation.’

The sarcasm in her tone is so biting Kylo thinks it could kill a lesser man.

‘Do they come to us?’

‘Nah,’ Lisann says. ‘Not too interested. They know what’s going on here. If they get too close they run the risk of not being able to pretend they don’t.’

Kylo still ducks his head, wills himself to be invisible. If he can help it, he’d rather keep low on this one. He will fight if he has to, but he has to admit that he doesn’t particularly want for this moment to be the one at which it all breaks apart.

There are just two First Order soldiers who descend from the truck. They look, from their uniforms, to be privates. _Cannon fodder_ , he thinks. Clearly this job is not one that anyone puts any status on. They depend on the uniforms and the blasters to be enough of a motivational tactic against simple country people like Bernhard.

Still. He sizes them up, quickly, keeping his eyes as lowered as he can. They look young and wiry. They have 507s slung on their holsters, a blaster that Kylo Ren knows to be sharp-shooting and easily learned. There’s not a lot of skill to a 507. You point it, press it, and it kills for you. You don’t even need that much of a grip to activate it.

He should know about them: he was one the one who gave the order for them to be standard equipment.

Now, here he is, with those 507s dangerously close to a group of people who can’t do a single thing against them, in a muddy field on Yadrin, and he’s vaguely worried about how he’s supposed to protect anyone from them, if it does come to their being blasted. He supposes there’s a certain irony to the whole thing.

‘Keep your head down,’ Lisann hisses, next to him. ‘For kriff’s sake, you’re staring. Just keep working. Don’t invite them over, lad. You off your mind on testosterone or what?’

‘Right,’ he says.

Studiously he ducks his head and resumes picking berries. At a distance, he can hear the men in an exchange with Bernhard’s crew masters, clearly discussing business. There are noises that sound like grunts of agreement, and then a sound slap of a hand against a shoulder. A rustling of a basket, and he can hear that the soldiers are taking some of the huwtha berries for themselves, or more likely for their superior officer who has sent them here.

He can feel tension, echoing around the workers. Everyone is deliberately ignoring the visitors, but no one is for a single second looking away from them.

 From Emma, particularly, there is a strong sense of heat, of purpose. She is thinking about killing them, he realises. She is assessing the odds. He knows the way she is feeling. It is a warrior’s instinct. She hasn’t decided if she will or not, she isn’t in a rage of violence or passion. She is simply considering the possibility, weighing up the options.

Who is she, he wonders. He doesn’t know how she ended up here, but whoever she is, she is strong. She has no force signature, nothing mystical to her. Yet she is plainly someone who, in the right circumstances, would kill a man.

There is more shuffling, the thudding of First Order boots on the dirt, a short and terse sounding conversation, a muffled bark of laughter. And then, they are moving towards the field, towards Kylo, towards Joris.

He moves his hand to the lightsaber hilt, shielded on his belt. _I’m ready_ , he thinks. He too has purpose, absolute, calm, full of the Force. He isn’t going to kill them if he doesn’t have to. But if they recognise him, if it comes to the worst….

In his mind, somehow, Rey is there too.

 _I’m ready too_ , she thinks, or perhaps he’s only imagining that’s what she would say. _You’re not on your own._

 But then, the men pass by Kylo and Lisann without so much as a look, walking onwards towards Elith, who is there with Emma, Tomas and Hania and some of the others who Kylo doesn’t really know at the edge of the field.

‘That one,’ one of Bernhard’s men says, pointing. He speaks with a slow, gruff voice. One of the First Order officers nods sharply.

‘That’ll do.’

‘Careful you don’t catch anything,’ another of Bernhard’s men says, and he chuckles. ‘She’s a real slut for it. Especially men in uniform.’

‘You wanna take her now?’ the other asks to the officers, then he answers his own question. ‘Nah, she needs a wash first, dirty cow. Pick her up later. Let her eat, get her clean. Better that way.’

There is some nodding, some general pointing and low mumbling that Kylo strains to hear as they move further away, towards the women. Next to him, he knows Lisann has understood. She is shaking with rage, fear, or something he doesn’t know.

Kylo watches as the First Order men and Bernhard’s controllers stand in front of Emma and Elith, and he understands, without hearing, the conversation that they are having. He can see it in their gestures, their laughter that is not returned. The faux-jocularity of their tone, the kind of arrangement they are making. The way that Yannick’s body language suggests fury, barely suppressed. The shuddering, obvious horror of what is going on in this field, this every-day cruelty. It tendrils across the fucking galaxy, he realises. Small-scale terror, the stamping of a boot over people who can’t resist against it. It spreads everywhere, even to this field, this no-place.

He breathes in and out Light, breathes it in and out. He hopes Rey is with him. Kriff, he hopes his uncle is with him, somehow. For all of their differences, he hopes that Uncle somehow knows, in some form that transcends earthly consciousness, that Kylo is _trying_.

He still wants to kill them just the same. His hand is almost shaking.

Next to him, Lisann places a hand on his arm, suddenly, the frisson of touch almost startling him.

‘Not here,’ she says. ‘They could shoot before we get there.’

_Yeah, or I could choke them a distance. Either way._

‘Olos, son,’ she says. ‘Keep your head down. We’ll make it right. But not here.’

As the men walk away, closer to him, all avuncularity and agreement, Kylo’s hand twitches so violently he has to pull himself up sharp, has to physically make an effort to restrain himself from attacking there and then. He _wants to_. It would be over in a minute. Less. He channels every impulse of the Light he can find.

He doesn’t do this anymore. Twelve days of not killing anyone, and of conscious attempts to walk the way of the Jedi, and he has to admit that he really isn’t Kylo Ren. _Not just him_.

The other person he is turning into doesn’t risk the lives of others. He isn’t sure of many things, but that is certainly something he knows. He and Rey have talked about that so often, it’s such a central tenet of everything they do…. He tries to hold onto that awareness.

There they are, those stupid soldiers, little kids dressed up in a uniform, picking off women like fat from a table. Looking like they own the planet.

On the other hand, here he is. He’s K’than at the top of the mountain, and he’s looking at the warrior with his sword outstretched. There are times when you attack. When the fight isn’t fair, when it’s been brought to you and you haven’t sought it.

Kriff. They’re still close to Elith, and Emma, to mention Joris. They have blasters that point and detonate within a milisecond, and Kylo Ren is fast, but is he fast enough? Can he absolutely guarantee no casualties? Two of them, plus the four of Bernhard’s men. He can get them down on the ground, but there’s that second’s doubt, that fraction of risk …

Not to mention the aftermath. He’ll have to take their solar and flee. He can handle that, but what’s he leaving behind him? There’s still Artur, there’s still Bernhard. There are still all these other kriffing people to consider.

He relaxes, just slightly. His grip on his saber lowers. The men walk past him and back into their off-roader, all strutting ease. He’ll see them again later, he thinks. If they’re planning to come back for Elith, that is.

 _Later_.

 

++

  
The ride back to the camp is a sombre experience by any standards. No one says a thing. In the front, even Bernhard’s men are silent, perhaps sensing the hostility of their audience. They give a little smirk towards Elith, but otherwise they restrain themselves.

Only at drop-off do they make a comment on it.

‘Get yourself nice and clean,’ one says to her. He gives her a little push. ‘You’ve got some visitors later, lucky girl.’

Another gives Emma a grin. ‘They asked for you as well, but bet your cunt’s so tight you’d probably crush them in it.’

‘You bet I would,’ Emma says. She radiates such white heat, such ferocity, that one of the men actually takes a step back from her.

‘Bitch,’ he says. He spits at her feet. ‘Don’t know what they’d want with you anyway. Ever even had a man, Emma? Or do they just wither up the first time you look at them?’

She doesn’t answer that, just walks away, still burning with heat.

‘Right then,’ the man says, unbothered. ‘See you all later.’

And with no further ceremony, he and his friend drive off into the distance, the scuff of the earth underneath their wheels rising up like a cloud.

 

Inside the communal space, however, the agitation is clear. Some of the workers haven’t fully understood what has happened, but others, those who were present during the conversation in the field, are explaining it. Everyone is talking. Only Elith is silent.

Her eyes are slate-grey and vulnerable, and her blonde hair is soft and delicate. She looks as if she has been made out of ivory and lace. She is extremely beautiful, he thinks. Extremely beautiful and extremely damaged.  She is the kind of woman that men fuck to make themselves feel like the owners of beautiful things.

He knows how it goes.

It’s so easy to make someone a victim,. In the end, all you have to do is convince them to accept it once, to give way to it just once. Then, from that point on, it’s always so very easy to do it again. At some point, they don’t even know that’s what you’re doing.

He moves into a smaller group, with Emma heading up an intense-sounding discussion.

 ‘We can’t just let them use her like a …’ Emma is plainly struggling to think of the word that sums up the extent of her disgust. ‘We can’t.’

‘So,’ Joris says, and his voice is soft. ‘We don’t let them. There’s two of them, and a lot more of us.’

‘Fight them?’ Yannick sounds appalled. ‘How? They’ll just call for backup. Do you know how many people there are in the First Order just here, let alone in the galaxy?’

‘Did you hear about what happened on Romulus 8?’ another woman says, her voice soft and slow. ‘They bombed the whole place to the ground.’

‘And on Teresthe,’ another person says. ‘Razed flat, just because there were a few dissidents there.’

‘They’d probably just bomb us,’ the woman says. ‘Wouldn’t even fight. One hit and we’re all dead.’

‘No one’s dying,’ Emma says, her voice calm and controlled, but strong. It carries across the room. ‘Between the two options of us all dying horribly and us letting them use Elith like a piece of meat to be carved up between them, I’m sure there is a middle choice. Let’s find it, and fast.’

‘What does it matter?’ Tomas says, roughly. ‘She’s just one girl. So they give her a bit of a rough time. Then they’re gone, back to base, and we’re all alive. Isn’t that -’

‘No,’ Emma says, before anyone else has a chance to.

Kylo can feel them approaching long before he’ll hear the sound of their solar-car. There is a presence on the air that he recognises as that of a lower-level soldier. The same kind of feeling as used to hover around the grunts on the bases – pettiness, low-level misery, a kind of willingness to violence in the absence of anything better. Order, chains of command. It all has its own signature, and they reek of it all.

‘I don’t think they can be that far,’ he says to Emma. ‘I think the way they drove us from the landing strip was a deliberately long route. I don’t think we’re actually that long away from Bernhard’s base of operations.’

 He and Emma exchange a careful look, and behind him, he can feel Joris’s and Yannick’s tension.

‘Right. Get Elith away,’ Emma says, her voice low. She turns to Lisann. ‘Lock her in your hut. Go out the back, now. Don’t open the door to anyone. Not even me. Not until you hear their solar-car driving away and it’s been at least an hour since you heard it. Turn off the lights.’

‘But – ‘ Lisann says, her hesitation clear. ‘What if you need …’

‘They might have a gun to my head. They might be making me say it at the threat of killing someone else.’

‘I’ll go with the two of you,’ Joris says suddenly.  He gives Lisann a smile. ‘I might not look like much, but believe me, I can run fast, hit fast, and move fast if you put me in the mood for it. We’ll wait it out together.’ He looks at Emma, who has grim expression.

‘Just in case the door turns out to not be an immoveable obstacle after all,’ he finishes.

‘No,’ Kylo says. He’s thinking fast. ‘I’m going out to meet them,’ he says. ‘I don’t think after that they’ll feel like knocking down any doors.’

 ‘You’re strong,’ Emma says. ‘I’ll give you that. But they have weapons and you don’t. There’s one of you against two of them and at least two guns. And who’s to say they don’t have friends. They might have just been scouts. Who knows how many they’ll bring.’

‘I can hold my own,’ Kylo says. Behind him, Yannick sighs.

‘You’ve been here five minutes,’ he says. ‘And now what, you’re assuming command? You’ll put us all at risk. You go out there and punch them up, first thing they’ll do, they’ll call for backup. Next day comes, we’ll have Artur round and then we’ll all be shaking in the corner like bloody Elith.’

‘I doubt it,’ Kylo says. ‘The way I talk to people, they usually listen.’

‘What because you’re so strong?’

‘Amongst other things.’ Kylo moves towards the door, and he can feel the presence of every eye on him. ‘Joris, go with Lisann and Elith. Emma, Yannick, keep everyone quiet in here. I’m going to wait for them. Quietly. Then I’m going to have a conversation with them.’

‘Kriff shit,’ Tomas says. ‘They’ll pulverize you, and then us, and then they’ll get the girl anyway.’

Irritated, Kylo moves towards him as fast as he has ever moved. He has a hand around Tomas’s throat before he can blink, just as he has done a thousand times with other men and women. Tomas’s eyes widen and there are cries around the room. Kylo calmly releases him.

‘I can hold my own,’ he repeats. ‘I don’t need anyone with me. You’ll just slow me down.’

‘Huh,’ Joris says. He gives Kylo a broad smile and, to his astonishment, a thumbs-up. It’s the first and only time anyone has ever given him a thumbs-up for nearly choking someone.

‘You’re trained,’ Emma says. Her eyes are calculating and cool. ‘Who exactly trained you?’

 _Part of the truth_ , he thinks.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘But the man who trained me is dead, and he wasn’t with the First Order. He was my uncle.’

In the distance, there is a vague sound of an engine. There isn’t time to press the argument.

‘Fine,’ Emma says. ‘Try.’

She nods, and Lisann, Elith and Joris begin to move towards the back door that leads out towards their sleeping hut, while Kylo walks calmly out to the front to wait for the approaching solar car. The sun has set and the night air is warm and full of the scent of flowers at dusk. The cicadas are noisy, clacking and burring.

He is ready. Not as Kylo Ren, nor as Ben Solo, but as _someone._ He almost smiles.

 

Sure enough, the car pulls up towards the camp. It isn’t the off-roader of the First Order, but a more clapped-out looking solar car, something more like Bernhard’s men drive. Kylo supposes that they are borrowing it, since this can hardly be an official mission, coming here to rape a girl who has been offered up as a bribe. At least while he was leader, such things wouldn’t have received official permission to use a military vehicle. He can’t imagine Hux is any different.

So in the darkness, he waits. There isn’t even an edge to his thoughts. He is just ready, and the Force vibrates him, strong and sure.

The two men, and he is relieved to see that it is still just the two of them, step out, and they are chatting to each other without a care. They aren’t even bothering to hold their weapons. They are still holstered. Clearly they expect no resistance here.

Kylo pushes with the Force, not hard but enough so that they fall slightly, losing their balance underfoot. He learned that trick before he could read. He always knew how to push at things so that they fell. Once upon a time it was his soft toy rabbit, but it turned out later that people fall just the same way.

Then, as they are regaining themselves, looking around for the source of their fall, he walks out in front of them. They look up at him, all outrage and swagger, and he smiles. In a split second, he sees them taking him in – the height, his hair, his face.

‘But you’re Kylo Ren,’ one man says. He blinks slowly as if he were a lizard or a cat confronted with something outside of its ability to know, something so far beyond its imagining that all it can do is close its eyes. ‘Kriff to fuck, you’re him.’

‘You’re dead,’ the other one says. ‘Everyone says you’re dead.’

‘There was never any body,’ the first man says. ‘They said it was a Force thing, your body dissolved into atomic or something.’

Kylo stretches his hand out, feigning a boredom he doesn’t feel. The two men flinch.

‘I am Kylo Ren,’ he says. ‘And you’ve got two choices.’

He breathes in and out, and if it’s Light or Dark he’s breathing, well, the men don’t need to know that.

‘You can either die here, or you can leave and forget you ever saw me. I won’t kill you. But,’ and here he lets just a fraction of his strength shake the earth underneath them, clenching his fist, ‘If you choose to live, then I want your communicators and your weapons. Right now.’

‘But it’s a capital offense,’ one says. His  voice is shaking, just a little bit. He isn’t much older than Elith, this one. He can’t be above twenty two years old.

Kylo thinks that he’s heard enough shaking voices to last a lifetime, but if this is the last one he’s going to hear, there are worse candidates.

 ‘Losing your com-bracelet in the field,’ the man says. ‘If we lose them and go back, then we’re dead anyway. The same with a blaster. We’re not allowed to lose them.’

‘But what’s to stop us pressing it right now and calling for backup?’ the other man says, and wildly he reaches as if to call for aid. Kylo’s hand moves so fast that he’s as sure as he could ever be that the Force is with him. The two men find their own hands raised above their head, suspended in mid-air as if caught in amber.

‘Do shut up,’ Kylo says, not with much hostility. ‘Look around you. You’ve got a solar car. You’re right, I take your coms bracelets, you go back, you’ll be dead. Even if you say Kylo Ren did it, who’s going to believe you? What would I be doing out here? But you can get out of all this. Just drive off. Go do something else.’

‘Th-they track…’

‘Yeah, through your coms bracelet,’ Kylo says, flatly. ‘Which I’m going to take. Drive the car to Yagrad. Sell it there, get some money. Change your clothes. Get a job somewhere, doing whatever. Change your names. Or else, I can still just kill you.’

He moves the Force just slightly, tightening against their throats. They gasp, reflexively, trying to move their hands down, trying above all else to get enough air.

‘Believe me,’ Kylo says, and loosens his grip. ‘I can kill you so easily you’ll hardly feel a thing. Neither would I.’

Then, carefully, he lifts out his lightsaber, and activates it. The red colour glows, stark and powerful against the dark. He puts it against one of the men’s throat, and he can feel the sweat, the cold naked terror of it. In his hand, the saber feels steady and sure. It is soothing, the way it hums. The calm presence of it.

‘The First Order…’ the young man says, breathlessly, still trying to gasp at more air. Kylo loosens his grip still further.

‘High rank, are you?’ Kylo gives a grim kind of smile. He doesn’t lower his lightsaber from the man’s throat, not yet. ‘Sooner or later, they’ll kill you anyway. You’re nobody. Some grunt they’ve sent out to Yadrin to check on a supplier. You’re expendable. Just get out.’

He finds himself, somewhat to his horror, channelling the distinct presence of his father. The feeling is so strong, so sudden, that it is almost as if Han is there in the room.

‘Seems to me you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.’

‘The Force is outlawed,’ one of the men says, struggling against the bond that is still holding his hands high in the air. ‘You, you can’t…’ 

‘Well, you know.’ Kylo shrugs, a trace of a smile in his voice. ‘It’s always a shame to have a skill you don’t use, isn’t it?’

He moves his lightsaber then, whistling it sharp against the wind, and he is almost satisfied to notice the way they flinch in terror. He sheathes it, puts it away.

Carefully, he unfastens their communicator bracelets from their wrists and lifts their 507s from their holsters. He checks their pockets for any further comm devices, anything of note. There is nothing there.

He looks inside the car. For good measure, he smashes the radio, checks the glove compartments and the boot. There’s nothing much there, certainly nothing of note. A few old blankets, empty cannisters, simple things.

Kylo returns to the men, and releases them from his hold. They gasp, their arms falling limply to their sides. Both look terrified, but it’s nothing to Kylo Ren. What kind of terror could there ever be that he doesn’t know?

‘So, you want to die today?’ he asks them. ‘Or you want to take your chances on Yagrad?’

One of the men nods towards the car, his whole body trembling, twitching. The other tries to do the same.

‘Good choice,’ Kylo says. He throws a Force punch at them that knocks them to their feet again, leaves them scrabbling at the earth as they try to stand up.

‘Don’t even think about coming back,’ he says.

They both scramble into the solar car, hands shaking. Kylo closes the door behind them and looks into the car window. With the Force, he reaches out. He projects as much anger as there is in him, letting it reach to them. He is sure it hurts them. After all, it's always hurt him. 

But then, with a scrunch of their tyres, they are driving away. Heavily, Kylo breathes in and out, and this time he knows for certain it's the Light inside of him that he's feeling, responsive, alive, and so radically present.  


	19. Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeeh! Ahem. All is coming together!! I think that there are probably another six or so chapters to come, and I have the ending written. This story is just great to write, and thank you for kudos and comments. I really appreciate it. May the Force be with you all, young Reylo padawans.

Once upon a time, Ben Solo is seven years old.

The family are temporarily on Coruscant, in Leia’s apartment that overlooks the city. At night, there are so many lights out there that Ben, when he tries to count them all, runs out of all the numbers he knows. He keeps trying, but he’s sure that there _isn’t_ actually a number big enough for all of those lights.

Mother is away, at a party. She attends a lot of parties here. She tells him they are all for work, but he doesn’t understand how work can also be a party, because work is serious and full of grey and white and boring conversations, whereas parties are full of food and people who laugh. The two things simply can’t go together.  Dad is away on the Falcon with Chewie, somewhere that Ben isn’t allowed to know about. He promised to bring him back a present.

So he is being babysat (not that he is a baby) by his Uncle Luke, who never seems to be the kind of person who would ever go to a party.  He looks at Ben sometimes as if he isn’t sure who he is, like he might not even be real.

‘Do a trick,’ Ben asks him, for what must be the millionth time. ‘Something Jedi.’

His uncle shakes his head. ‘Jedi things aren’t tricks. They’re a sacred duty.’

‘What’s _sacred_?’

‘It means, very special. Something that you’re given to do by the Force, a special job that no one else can do.’

Ben grins and waves his hand like he’s learned, so that one of the sofa cushions falls to the floor with a soft noise. It feels funny, moving things like that. You just imagine it and then they fall, like you can control the whole world with just your head.

‘But that wasn’t a special job, Uncle. I could just do it. Did you see?’

Uncle Luke shakes his head, looking angry.

‘Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. I don’t want to see you using the Force like that, Ben. You should only use it when I tell you to, when it’s the right time.’

‘But …’

‘Ben,’ his Uncle says, and now he sounds very scary, like he does when he’s really angry. ‘I don’t want to tell you twice. I see you using the Force to mess around, for stupid things that don’t matter, and you and I are going to have a very serious conversation about whether you’ll be allowed to train with me next year. Jedi don’t do the things that you’re doing. We look after people, okay? Not mess around. You want to be a Jedi?’

‘Ugh,’ he says. His uncle is so serious all the time. ‘Yes, I want to be a Jedi.’

‘Then don’t use the Force for stupid tricks.’

His uncle apparently softens slightly and holds out a hand to him. ‘If you’re good, tomorrow I’ll show you a new form I learned, all right kid? It’s pretty awesome. Reckon you’ll really like it.’

It always went like that. Ben wondered when his uncle would ever, finally, say that he did something cool instead of just telling him off. It was just the same with Dad.

'Don't use the force, kiddo,' Han always said. 'That stuff's just for when you're older.'

Everyone always said that. 

In his opinion, it was pretty stupid. He was an awesome Jedi who could do loads of things, but all anyone ever told him to do was to not do them. He felt like he  _had_ to do them sometimes because it was all coming out of him and he didn't know what to do with it. He was a superhero, and he wasn't allowed to be one, and it sucked. 

Well, when he was older, he was going to do Jedi things every day, and no one would be able to stop him, not even his Uncle, not even when he was being _really_ scary.

Ben holds onto that thought for a long time.

It’ll be another twenty two years before he lets it go.

  
+++

  
Kylo Ren is seventeen and he's holding a blood-red lightsaber in his hand. The dead body bleeding out on the floor in front of him is one of the former trainees from the temple, a girl called Maura. She was two years older, and he'd always liked her more than the other trainees, more than the snot-nosed kids and the sombre and studious ones who followed Luke around like he was a god. Maura, at least, had a bit of self-possession. They'd talked to each other about the complexities of being a Jedi, about the failings of Master Luke. She hadn't been able to do half the stuff that Ben could do, but at least she didn't go on about it like some of the others did.

That was why he'd taken her with him to Snoke, why he'd taken especial effort to persuade her to join the Dark Side. It had just seemed a shame to kill Maura without giving her a chance to prove herself. He'd managed to make it seem like it was a good idea for her to join him, and she'd consented in a haze of what he knows now was teenage emotion, uncertainty and pain. She didn't have family to go back to anyway. 

Unfortunately, she'd not taken to the Dark Side all that well. She'd whined about it, expressed what were plainly doubts, and over the nearly two years they'd been training together under Snoke, Kylo had got pretty sick of her. Snoke tolerated her, for her power, but she wasn't the best student. In the end, she hadn't been anyone really special. She was just another Dark Side wannabe, who didn't really want it enough to ever do anything special with what little power she had. 

 She had also been the first woman Kylo had ever had sex with, and as she'd unfastened his zipper, pushing her hand towards his cock, all hesitancy and vulnerability, he'd read her mind and seen that she thought, stupid girl, that if he had sex with her, there was a chance she might be able to get him back to the Light, and then they could go home to Luke and it wouldn't be like this any more...  
  
He and Maura hadn't had very much sex before he'd killed her. It was regrettable that he had to do it, but she had thoughts of betrayal. She didn't like Snoke, never really settled to the First Order routine. He sensed mutiny in her all the time, and Snoke had made it plain that if anyone was going to do something about her, he expected it to be Kylo.

Sometimes, he could even sense the vague flicker of Light around her, fractured and complicated but irritatingly present. It was mostly when they were sleeping, her lying next to him, warm and far away. Then, more than at any other time, he could feel the eddying flow of the Light that was still there in her, wrapped in uncertainty.

She had been an obstacle on the path to his becoming Kylo Ren, and he'd done what needed to be done. Before she died, she had looked at him with such awfully sad eyes.

  
+++  
  
  
  
In Kylo's hand, one of the communication bracelets flashes a series of red and white beeps that signal an incoming order.

 Kylo recognises the device as belonging to a junior officer; he’s never had to wear this kind of bracelet himself, but he’s seen them often enough in his subordinates. It feels strange in his hand, the weight of it, the way it looks against the lines of his palm. The only light is from the central hut, and the steady flashing of the device.

Around him is only the silence of the fields, and in the distance, the noise of the solar-car. Somewhere nearby are the others, the people he has, for whatever reason, decided he has some kind of responsibility to protect.

He hasn’t killed the men. So somewhere out there, there are two ex-First Order officers, careening  away in a stolen solar-car. He wonders if they’ll survive, and what they’ll do with his charity. Will they change their lives?  He can imagine how, perhaps, their freedom will give them a sense of new possibilities, how they’ll manage to eke out an existence that takes them further away from their former selves, until one day, they wake up and their whole life has become free from violence, from hatred or shame.

Or will their corruption prove to be immutable, will their lives descend into a series of petty crimes, petty violences, until one day, somewhere or another, they meet a brutish end?

It’s up to them, he supposes. He’s given them the option. That’s more than they ever deserved to begin with, and it’s where his responsibility towards them ends.

Of course, he knows that the thing he’s done means that the end of this period of his life is coming. He is no longer the only person alive who knows where Kylo Ren is. Snoke use to say that once you tell someone your secret, it’s only a matter of time until your secret is betrayed. _The only guarantee of trust is silence._

The men might tell someone tonight. They might land in the city, sell the car, and in some dirty Yagrad bar, reveal what kind of evening they’ve had. They might broadcast it over one of the communications webs that litter the galaxy. Perhaps, still, they will try to go back to the First Order to reveal what they know, hoping it will save them.

His days as Olos Kid are numbered. But, well, that was always true.

He connects to the messages, and a scrolling line of commands flashes on screen, starkly pixelated, beginning about forty minutes before.

‘Copy RN78-09 Report to Base 003 at 06:30 for Mission Briefing.’

‘RN78-09 Copy message.’

‘RN78-09 Messages not copied will result in sanctioning.’

The latest one, several minutes prior simply reads: ‘RN78-09 Warning 1 Active.’

They’d be fools to go back, he thinks. To this kind of slavery, where 32 minutes of an unanswered message is a formal warning. He knows that three warnings equals death. That was another policy he had implemented directly. He had thought it was more than fair.

‘Copy unit leader,’ he types, and sends.

‘Received,’ a message immediately flashes back.

Kylo skims through the communicator options. It’s not a high-ranking official’s device, so it doesn’t have half the functions he is used to seeing. There is a messaging function through which orders are received. A map function, which he hastily opens.

There, right on screen and as clear as day, is his location. A little winking pin tells him that he is at 52.084905, 4.311370, which is precisely nowhere at all. He looks around his location.

Landing strip 3, he observes, is just 6.8 kilometres in a south westerly direction. It is surrounded by a small block consisting of what seems to be around eleven buildings, to the side of which is a main road that runs towards a small residential zone that can’t be more than twenty streets in total. Otherwise, all around them is field land, stretching for mile after mile.

The likelihood is, he thinks, that Bernhard is based in this residential area. There is nothing else around, and when he considers this operation, its particularly local, small form of cruelty, it seems most probable it is homegrown, regional. No one would come all this way just to create this scheme to keep a few slaves picking berries, to save the money of salaries.

They are just 9.4 kilometers from the town (if you could call it that). He zooms in on the town. There is a central strip, with two bars, supply stores, a depot of some kind. The distance is nothing at all, to someone in a solar-car. Nothing at all to someone who’s walking – as long as they know the way.  He memorises the direction, spins the bracelet to orientate himself. Now he knows which way to go.

The soldier whose bracelet this is clearly has no security clearances to speak of. Kylo looks through the updates on the shared platform but it’s all standard stuff. There is nothing to indicate what Hux might be doing. The planned attack on Theran went well, he sees. Or rather, the report of it indicates it went well, which is not at all the same thing. Otherwise, he sees they are testing weaponry on previously shelled, presumed abandoned locations.

Nothing about him, but that’s hardly surprising. He’s dead, and politically it’s best if he stays that way. Supreme Leader Hux has a lot of battles to fight, and even after twelve days, Kylo Ren is old news.

Sighing, he turns off the communicator and puts it neatly in his pocket alongside the other one. If the two men are tracked, it makes sense that they’d still be in this camp. Until 06:30, they have no duty to be anywhere else.

The two blasters, the 507s, present more of a problem. On the one hand, Kylo thinks it might be a lot better if people here were armed. On the other hand, arming people tends to suggest you want those people to fight – tends to invite confrontation. Amongst an outnumbered, scared, emotionally volatile and untrained group, the presence of two blasters might not be… politic.

For now, he stashes them away, pushing them into a hollow between two trees, at the edge of the encampment. Then, his spirit high and steady, he walks back to the main building. As he passes the hut where Joris and Elith are stashed away, he knocks on the door.

‘They’ve gone,’ he shouts through. ‘Everything’s okay out here.’

It feels pretty good to be shouting that, he thinks. In some small way, he’s done something that, for once, doesn’t make him feel disgusted with himself. It’s an odd feeling, but as it turns out, he enjoys it. 

He feels, in some strange way, more capable than he's felt in years. 

 

++++

 

When he walks back to the common area where Emma and Yannick are standing guard, barricading the door in case Kylo had failed to stop the two First Order soldiers, there was a dizzying rush of questions.

 _How did you do it?_  
Are they dead?  
Where are they now? Can they come back?

Everyone’s voices hit Kylo in coordination, a loud roar of fear and noise. He lets it all wash over him, staying nearly silent.

‘They’re gone,’ is all he says, and he keeps saying it.

Later, when a card game is in motion and Joris is (most likely purposefully) distracting everyone with a long and confusing tale of heroic carpet salesmen on Ultaraan, Kylo had found a moment to pull Emma to the side and tell her about the weapons and communicators, and something more like the real story of the kind of fight he had.

She is measured and calm, but the light in her eyes is fearsome when he mentions the hidden blasters and their closeness to the town. Not for the first time, Kylo wonders whether Rey and Emma would get on well or see each other as rivals. Would they spar with each other, eager to prove their strength?

‘We’ve got to get rid of the communicators,’ Emma says. ‘They’ve got tracking in them. Olos, do you think you could drop them in the solars in the morning? Then they’ll drive them off. It’ll look like the guys are being driven back to the base, won’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Kylo says flatly. ‘But then they’ll just end up getting driven back here. It won’t hold as a story for long.’

‘Fine,’ Emma says, nodding. She is decisive and cool. ‘Crush them, then.’

Except he doesn’t, of course. He keeps them with him. If anyone’s tracking them, all they’ll be able to see is where Kylo Ren is. Woe betide anyone comes to him, thinking they’ve found two missing junior officers. Woe betide anyone who even tries.

He and Emma talk strategy then. Her plan for escape, now she knows they have weapons, has suddenly got a lot stronger. It all hinges, she tells him in a whispered, excited voice, on the next time there is a planned victim. Those days are when Bernhard and his men are distracted, eager to secure their new bait. There are fewer of them out in the fields on those days.

‘We tried it when they got you and Joris,’ she said, and her voice is crackling with energy. ‘But we hadn’t expected they’d use Lisann and Elith too. It was the first time they’d done fake officers like that. We couldn’t guarantee we could get them out safely.’

‘Well,’ Kylo says. ‘This time we can.’

Emma just smiles.

‘Olos, my friend. When this is all over,’ she says, ‘Believe me, you and Joris are the first people I’m inviting to my show.’

Kylo blinks at that. ‘Show?’

‘I was a sculptress,’ she says. ‘Didn’t you know? I work with metal, steel mostly. Yannick was my agent. We were supposed to meet some no time gallery in Halantir, someone who wanted to put on an exhibition. But they got us on the road, the bastards. They put up roadblocks, directed us into some ditch…’

She shrugs, and gives Kylo what he thinks is a rather wicked grin. ‘You should probably know, my type of art’s not too dainty. I’m as strong as an ox. And twice as angry.’

He almost smiles back at that. Whoever he has been as Olos Kid for these two weeks, he is glad, in some way, that he hasn’t been alone. He has been glad for Emma, the way that she blazes in the darkness. Glad for Joris too, the way that he shines his own light, less fearsome but no less a candle against the darkness.

‘And what about Yannick?’

Emma had grinned again at that. ‘Your buddy Joris already asked that much less bluntly. Ask him about it.’

They had left it there, but Kylo had gone out of the conversation feeling that there was hope, and it wasn’t all buried in the two blasters.

 

+++

That evening, Rey shows up to training with a nasty-looking cut down her face. Someone, plainly, has stabbed at her with a weapon. The thought of it irritates Kylo. He can’t quite put a name to the irritation, but it’s instinctive and reflexive. Seeing her, his good mood evaporates. Whatever hope he has, above and beyond this situation, it's tied up with Rey. He doesn't want her injured. 

 _What happened?_ He asks her, he gestures at her face. _Someone cut you._

 _Stormtroopers,_ she says. _Where we are, we got… there was a confrontation. We think they were just in the area at random, because there was no reason to be where we were. It was only one ship but…_

_And now?_

Rey shrugs, and he sees the lines of exhaustion etched on her face. _They’re not a problem now. We’ve moved on. I’m on board ship, talking to you. I’m in an engine room. It’s the only place I can project like this without someone knowing._

She never talks this way, not about anything personal, nor about her life in the ship. They talk about the most intimate things, in one way: the meaning of what they are doing, the Jedi training, what it is to be a Jedi. Things that go right to the heart of them.  
 In another way, they scarcely know each other. The closest thing to a friendship between them was when she had shared her memories of Skywalker. Otherwise, they focus on training.

Now she lifts the loose sleeve of her tunic, and he sees there is another, deeper wound there. It looks cruel.  
_Things got nasty and our med-bay is full. I’m not a priority. It really hurts, but I was lucky._

Kylo wonders, as always, exactly what his student is doing with her life. Does she use the Force, wherever she is? Who is she with? What are they fighting for, what goals can they possibly have, in their reduced circumstances, other than simply to survive?

He moves closer to her, aiming to examine the wound. He can never see anything of where she is. It’s always just her, seemingly suspended out of time and space, both present and not present in this dark field on Yadrin.

Occasionally, he thinks he catches flashes of where she is in his dreams – a ship, a burnt-out looking house, wooden slats propped together to make a bed. Faces, memories. He can feel her hand as it moves to lift a hammer, as she works steadily on whatever she is doing. The face of a man he doesn’t recognise, laughter etched on him. Once, the silhouette of the woman who was once his mother, just out of reach. Always, in the distance, the noise of a ship, or the rush of what sometimes sounds almost like water.

Close up, now, he lifts her arm, looks at the cut. It’s from some kind of sword, a clean, deep cut that’s gone almost to bone. He can touch her so easily. Whatever this is, wherever she is and whatever they are doing, he knows that she, at least, is real. The way she smells, the way she moves. The softness of her skin. Its brokenness. He touches a finger, careful, just above the cut, and she winces in pain.

_You can’t leave this wound like this. It’s too deep._

_I can wait_ , she says, but there’s hesitation in her voice. _The medbay will be able to help me later. I’m not dying. Not like the others. It’s not… we should just keep training._

 _Let me_ , he says. He wills the Force to him, feeling its lightness, its balance. _I can heal this. I’m sure I can._

She shakes her head, but he can feel her hope, just the same. _You don’t have to. I’m not asking you to do that._

_I’m offering. Learn to take a good offer when you see one, Rey._

He touches her just lightly, on her shoulder.

_Or you think you’re going to find someone else who can do Force healing any time soon?_

_I don’t want .._

She doesn’t elaborate on what, exactly, it is that she doesn’t want from him. To be dependent? To let him into her mind? For him to help her? It could be so many different things.

 _Let me_ , he repeats. _I was never that good with healing. It’ll help me to learn._

She gives a half-smile at that. _Not much call for healing as Supreme Leader Kylo Ren?_

 _I never saw the advantage of it_.

_And now?_

_You’re in pain. I can’t train you when you’re injured like this. Can you even hold anything in that hand?_ He touches her left hand, below the wound, and again she winces. He feels no resistance against his touch. The hand lies limp.

 _No,_ she admits. She shakes her head, concedes. _Do it. Heal me if you can._

So Kylo tries to remember exactly how Uncle Luke had taught this lesson, not that he’d been listening. He has a memory of it, of his having dismissed the teaching. He thinks about how easy it had been with Lisanne.

Reaching out, he feels for the injury in Rey. It’s easy enough to sense. It’s a vivid red, a rupture in the Force. He feels the intent behind the cut, seeing the life of the woman who has done it to her – a small life, a trained officer with the First Order, a talented and pragmatic officer whose chance came and who took that chance. There was no malice in the cut. It was a battle wound, impersonal, intended to incapacitate, to kill, but not specifically to hurt.

As he reaches into that, he can feel, more present than ever before, the other woman in front of him. Rey is so afraid. He senses into her fear, the depth of it. He suddenly sees her, clear and bright, fighting against the officer. They are on a planet that looks abandoned, somewhere damaged and broken. The Force is distraught here, uneven and fractured. This place shouldn’t be. He feels suddenly sick, and he realises that Rey has felt this all the time – for weeks they’ve been here, with the Force underneath her and around her, broken, calling for her help.

The fight is clean, militaristic. Rey is blocking something, and the officer is trying to get past. She, Rey, isn’t fighting well. Kylo watches her step. She’s got faults as a fighter, she’s too heavy on her left side, and she’s not holding ground. She’s giving way too easily, not taking opportunities to push back. Her opponent is gaining ground. Swiftly, she parries and her blade makes sudden, violent contact with Rey’s arm.

Kylo winces, and there is a noise behind, a supressed gasp of a woman. Who is behind her?  Who is it that Rey is protecting like this?  
  
Kylo suddenly sees the face of his mother. She looks so very beautiful and so very old. When did she get so old? 

Rey continues fighting, the blood pouring out of her injured arm. She pushes with the Force, knocks the other woman down – it’s all over in seconds, she knocks her unconscious, flat out.

Abruptly, he jolts out of the memory. The sickness he feels knocks him off balance, and it isn’t only to do with whatever was wrong with the planet Rey was just on. He tries to focus away from it, from the _situation_ with Leia, who isn’t someone he knows, who is _not_ his relative, not anymore …

His focus wavers, just a fraction.

 _Ouch_ , Rey thinks, sharply, pain rushing from her. _Kriffing hell Kylo. I didn’t think you were still hurting people for fun. It hurts._ She grits her teeth, alive with raw pain. 

 _I saw the woman who made this cut_ , he says.

Rey nods. _It was like that for me, when I healed you. I could see some… things. Memories._

 _Hold still_.

With an effort, willing Light and balance and goodness, and all the things that Kyo Ren forgot he had ever known, he holds onto the way the injury feels, the imbalance of it, its wrongness.  
  
He wills the Force, healing, encouraging growth. He thinks about the way that Rey is so strong, so powerful. She brims with health and life. He feels the way her body moves, lithe and clean, athletic, purposeful Her energy, her strength that runs through her, he is bringing that to the wound, letting it work around it and in it. The effort it is taking him, to connect to her strength, to be within her body, is considerable. It is nothing at all like healing Lisann. He feels as if he is holding onto something that is almost beyond him, beyond his power.

 He is so viscerally aware of Rey, of everything in her and about her, what holds her together.  The way she looks and moves. Her shape and form. The light and depth of her. Now his hands are on her skin, and she is gasping with pain, and then, gradually, so gradually, with relief.

He has done it, he thinks. The wound is closed, invisible. All that remains is her skin, unblemished and whole. She looks at him with clear eyes, full of warmth and smile.

 _Thanks_ , she says. _Thanks, Ben._

He has an insane, unimaginable impulse to kiss her. He can imagine lifting her up to him, letting her wrap her legs around him, and kissing her, his hands in her hair. The softness of it, the way she would feel …

 _You’re welcome_ , he says, his voice not entirely even.

He releases his hand from her skin, lets her stand up straight, adjust her posture. She flexes her arm and her hand, and gives him a wide, unguarded grin.

 _Look_ , she says, showing him. _That was amazing!_

He manages, he thinks, to smile back.

 _Next time,_ he says, regaining his focus on the task ahead, _you’ve got to learn how to sidestep better. I saw you fighting with that woman, and your footing was way off. Ready to try?_

 _Sure,_ Rey says. _I feel amazing. You think you can take me?_

He laughs. After what he’s been through tonight with the First Order officers, he’s fairly sure he can get through absolutely anything he chooses.

 _Get your sabre_ , he says. 

 


	20. Change

That night, for the first time in years, Kylo dreams of his uncle. In the dream, Luke steps towards him, half illuminated and half in shadow. Wherever they are looks like an amalgamation of the apartment on Coruscant and the sleeping quarters of the Falcon. He looks younger than when Kylo saw him last, more like the man he remembers from the early days at the temple, brighter eyed, clearer.

 _Hi_ , Luke says, and he gives him a faintly mocking smile, like something’s funny. _Kylo Ren._

 _Uncle,_ he says. He feels fuzzy, and he knows he must be dreaming. _You died._

Luke just shrugs. _So did Ben Solo._

 _I don’t remember dying,_ Kylo says.

 _You fucked up,_ Luke says, and he never swore in life. Kylo blinks. _You killed all those people, Ben._

_I know._

_Would you take it back?  If you could?_

He thinks about Daniel, the little Jedi he killed, the first one. He thinks about all of them, the innumerable hundreds of lives. Too many of them to even count.

_I can’t take it back. I don’t know how._

_Hey kid,_ Luke says. _Remember when you were ten, and I showed you the S’tharaka for the first time?_

Kylo almost grins, surprised. _Sure._

_Tell me what happened._

_You showed me how to float with the Force, and the first time I did it I fell flat on my face. Then I did it again, and I floated too high, and you had to pull me back down._

He has an image of himself, ten and small, floating high into the sky, learning how to let the Force lift him up, and his uncle below, panic-stricken, calling him back. He’s so high, and the Force is everywhere, and it’s full of Light. He’s scared, he doesn’t know how high a person is supposed to go before it’s too high. He can do anything.

 _Yeah_. Luke looks unexpectedly sad, thoughtful. _I shouldn’t have pulled you back down. It was all right that you got too high. You wouldn’t have really hurt yourself._

_I was just a kid. I was scared._

_I loved you Ben_ , Luke says, which is unexpected. _When I was with you, and Leia and Han, that was the happiest time of my life. But I was scared too, of how high you could go. You could always do everything too fast. I’m sorry I wasn’t a good teacher. I’m sorry I wasn’t K’than._

Kylo shrugs, tries to clear his head.

_You were my uncle. I was, am … I’m sorry._

_You still wanna learn something, kid? Got time for an old Master?_

_Sure._  
  
Luke smiles at him, and Kylo has the strange, powerful impression that he really is loved. He feels Luke’s benevolence towards him, the way he still loves him, how it feels to be precious and important to someone who has known you for your whole life.

_Sometimes you’ve gotta punch someone, Ben. Really hard. Because that’s the only thing they’ll ever respect, and you’ve tried everything else. It’s not what Jedi do. It’s not what we try to do. But it happens, and it doesn’t have to be ugly. There are ways to punch people that aren’t about torturing them. I should have taught you that. At least once._

_You were afraid to._

_Yeah,_ Luke says _. I thought you’d take it and run with it. I thought I wouldn’t be able to pull you back, if I taught you that._

Kylo gives him a wry look.

_I became the Supreme Leader. You were probably right._

_You were fifteen when it all happened with Snoke,_ Luke says. _You were just a kid and no one ever told you that sometimes you’ve just got to punch someone, not until he showed up._

 _I used to feel so angry_ , Kylo says. _All the time._  
  
_You were a teenager, practically on your own on an island with your uncle._ Luke gives him a wry smile. _Maybe I should have installed a holoviewer or something. That or given you and Maura a private room._

 _Yeah_. Kylo manages to quirk a smile, although he is aware he’s feeling tremendous distress. _Maybe. It would have been easier than … than all of this._

 _Seriously,_ Luke says. _I should have told you. I knew you were angry, but I thought if I could just train you better, if I could keep everything always in the Light…_

_It didn’t go away. It didn’t work._

_No, well. It wouldn’t. You can’t stop anger from existing like that. You can’t purify it out of someone. Shouldn’t even try.   I saw it was building, there was so much of it, and I…._

A flash of his uncle’s face, the sudden, sharp hum of a sabre in the darkness. A frightened boy.

_I wish it had worked._

Luke smiles then. _Yeah, too bad it didn’t._

_I do wish I could take it back._

_I know._

Luke and he just look at each other then. Kylo has a sudden image of the faces of the two First Order officers when he let them go, the way they stumbled to the car, fleeing for their lives, but with their lives still in tact.

He has the thought of Rey, the ugliness of the line of blood down her face, the openness of her wound, the way it had felt to heal it. He hears Joris, singing in the fresher in the morning in their hut, cheerful and alive. Elith, her slate-grey eyes wide when he tells her that he doesn’t think the First Order men will ever come back. Lisann, standing up straight, the sun against her back. Rey, holding her light-sabre, sharp and fierce

The way that Emma had looked when he had told her, away from the others, that he’d kept the two blasters. The hardness in her eyes, her resolve. The way she looked over to Yannick and Kylo realised that she was fighting for him as much as for herself.

People, everywhere. Their hearts so full of things. And they are all Kylo Ren’s to protect and to care for.

 _Uncle, I think I might be a Jedi after all_ , he says.

Uncle Luke just smiles.

 _So learn when it’s time to punch someone_ , he says.

With a gasp, Kylo wakes up, bolt awake in the dawn sunlight, and he knows - absolutely knows - that today is the day when everything is going to change. 

 

 


	21. All Endings are Beginnings

 

The day starts off in a normal enough way. Joris is awake and singing tunelessly in the ‘fresher at the side of their hut. He is always in a good mood in the mornings, and Kylo often has the half-impression that he knows the songs Joris is singing, although he can never quite place them. Perhaps they’ve simply filtered into his consciousness over the last two weeks of sharing a space together.

Every morning, they eat some left-over bread and bits and pieces, washed down with water and, if they are lucky, Lisann brings around warm drinks for everyone. She makes something that she calls an uplifter of spirits that tastes, to Kylo at least, like mud and some kind of boiled root that is almost certainly not, but could be very distantly related to the thing he knows as coffee. He and Joris don’t talk much during breakfast. There is little time and little to be said.

This morning, as he sometimes does, Joris is watching Yadrin 3’s interminable news reporting show. It is a gossipy, pointless update on life on Yadrin, none of which interests Kylo in the slightest. It is all too trivial for words, and especially this morning, while he is so full of purpose and intent, he simply ignores it altogether and meditates instead. He thinks about Uncle Luke. He thinks about the sound of his first name. Ben.

 _Ben_. He lets the sound echo around his head until the noise of the presenters gradually becomes soothing, a white sea of babbling, laughing, gossiping, fitting and fussing, like listening to a baby gurgle or a kitten mewl.

It feels like so much longer than two weeks that he’s been here. Perhaps it’s because there are no variations in the days, nothing to demarcate the time. There is no such thing as a weekend or a rest, or any other punctuation to the rhythm of their work. They simply wake up, go to the fields, and come back. Every day is the same. They are just labour to be used, to be exhausted. It already feels endless, like he had no other life before this one.   
  
He is eager to see Emma again, to plan more cohesive exit strategy than a whispered idea about blasters and moments of opportunity. She is a tough woman, capable and sure. But she isn’t a strategist. She’s a sculptress who’s ended up leading a pack of slaves. It’s most likely beyond her to envisage how the fight might go, to anticipate the dangers, to seize the right moments.

Well, it isn’t beyond Kylo Ren. All he needs to consider is the people involved, their likely fault-lines, their likely strengths. Thinking about it, he turns suddenly to Joris.

‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Emma said you know. What’s going on between her and Yannick, anyway?’

Joris snorts. ‘I didn’t think you were that much of a people person, Olos. You want to know their full history or just the important bits?’

‘I want to know if she’d put him before someone else. If it comes to a time when that might be important.’

Joris considers this.

‘I think so,’ he says, seriously. ‘Those two have something going on, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t say it’s love, per se. But it’s not nothing.’

Kylo just nods. _Not nothing_ is still a risk, he thinks. Emma is an important aspect in whatever is going to happen, however they are going to escape this. And anyone or anything that for her is no longer nothing and is somewhere in the general arena of love is a risk.

+++

 As ever, that morning all of them troop out into the main pick-up point, where the line of solar vans is waiting for them to enter. It is all a normal day on Yadrin, as far as it goes.

Yet Kylo still feels the same sense of presence that he awoke with. He is standing straighter, and he holds onto his lightsaber, not sure quite for why, but clear that he needs to give his attention to this moment.

 _The Force is with people who let themselves be ready_ , his uncle had once said. _It will always prepare you, if you let it._

Sure enough, his uncle was right.

At the other side of the vans, there are nine of Bernhard’s men there, all of them looking heavily armed and righteously pissed off.  And Kriff shit fuck.

One of them, Kylo sees, has somehow got hold of Emma – he must have grabbed her as she left her hut that morning. He’s holding her tight, by her waist and her hair. There’s blood on her, and Kylo feels the sudden panic of those around him as much as his own anger.

‘No one runs,’ one of the men says. He angles his gun towards the gathered crowd. ‘Move and she dies. Get into a line now. Straight ahead of us.’

Joris and Kylo catch each other’s eye. Kylo’s hand on his lightsaber tightens. They all walk into a line in front of Bernhard’s men, careful, slow.

 ‘We want a word with all of you twats,’ the first man says to them. ‘Before we get our day’s work started proper like. Last night we was expecting payment, but did we get it?’ He turns to one of his partners, in a sick mockery of a comedy routine.

‘We did not,’ the partner says, mock-solemn. ‘Us payers had vanished into the night. With us solar car. And what we wanna know is, what happened here that made them think they could drive off. We asked ourselves, what could you fine twats do with them? What could you bunch of cunts do to persuade ‘em not to pay up?’ 

‘Where are they, huh?’ One of the men spits on the ground and turns his hand to Emma.  ‘We reckon this uppity piece of shit bitch took them, probably killed them. Bet she rode them first, dried them out, hey Emma? You get yourself worked up over them? You jealous? Your pussy getting sad to be left out of the party? That what this is?’

Emma says nothing. Suddenly, horrifically, the man smashes his fist into her face. There is no warning, nothing. He just goes for it, with a single hard blow. Elith cries out in shock.

 The blood running down her lip is violent.

 _I used to do this_ , Kylo thinks. The sunrise is stark against his eyes. It’s going to be soon, he thinks. He isn’t going to live like this. What’s happening here, to these people, is _wrong_.

He is done with it. The force is with him, and he might be a Jedi after all. True, he might not only be that. But for now, the Force is everywhere, with the Light in and through everything, including him. He is humbled by it. He has a duty to honour it, to make his peace with it. He has a duty to Rey, and to himself, and to all the people who have gone before him.

 This, _this feeling_ , is the thing that his uncle has been trying to teach him all these years. Even when they weren’t talking, even when Kylo thought he had a different life, when he thought he could fly higher than anyone, Luke was still trying to teach him this.

There isn’t any higher life. There isn’t any great warrior on the mountain to defeat, only in the stories. Everything that really matters is small, human, and not at all like in a story. It’s just this. Him, a strength that lends itself to him, and a chance to _try_ to fix something that he knows ought to be fixed.

 _Sorry it took me so long to listen_ , _Uncle,_  he thinks. _I’m listening now._

A second man delivers another swift kick to Emma’s chest, and Kylo instinctively recoils at the sound it makes. He knows the sound intimately, but it’s different when it’s someone whose face he’s starting to like.

‘Stupid cow,’ the man says. He smacks her hard again and she cries out in pain. Next to him, Yannick suddenly moves forward, intent on stopping him. Another of the men shoots, and it’s fast – there is a scream, and Yannick falls, in slow motion. Emma screams, and the noise sounds like a nightmare that, once upon a time, Kylo Ren would have thought was a normal thing   
  
There is pandemonium now.

Emma is down on the ground, her hands pulled behind her. They are kicking her chest, her stomach, her face. Each blow knocks her deeper into the earth. There is blood on her, where she is grazed. She is breathing raggedly, worse and worse. It is clear the rest of them are just supposed to watch. Yannick is dead, sprawled on the ground.

Not using the Force, not being himself, has worked out to a point. But he isn’t really Olos, and he certainly isn’t a field labourer under some petty slavery scheme. He trained with Luke Skywalker, and with General Snoke. He’s been a Supreme Leader.

 _It’s time_ , he thinks. He moves to draw his lightsaber, secrecy be damned, everything be damned.

‘I can’t watch this anymore,’ Joris says suddenly, at his side, and his voice is angry and strong. ‘I thought if I could just bide my time, but –‘ He straightens his shoulders. ‘I can’t do this. Olos, now might be the time to tell you that I am not one hundred percent farm boy.’

Then, to Kylo’s astonishment, Joris picks up a small stone from the ground and throws it at one of the men who is beating Emma. It lands squarely on his forehead with a thump.

‘Hey,’ Joris shouts. ‘ _Yagrat etha-belot.’_

Loosely, Kylo thinks, this translates to ‘vile piece of your own mother’s shit’ in the street dialect he recognises from Coruscant.

The man shouts something back, foul and violent, and there is a general move by his men towards Joris. They are, at least, no longer beating Emma, who lies prone on the ground, blood pooling around her. Rather, they are descending on Joris and Kylo with the speed and fury of an army – everyone is running, he can see Tomas trying to flee, running, against one of the men who is chasing him -

But Joris, far from Kylo’s expectations, is fighting back. He is parrying to their side, and with a neat hit, he floors one of them almost instantly. He is fighting in a way Kylo recognises, not a Jedi form, but something else, some kind of swordsmanship pose that he is _so_ sure he knows -

Bernhard’s men fight brutal and dirty, like farmers.

Kylo gets involved swiftly, mostly protecting Joris, but as he fights, he realises how easy it would be to protect all of them. There’s nothing here he can’t take – even without the Force, he’s strong, trained, and powerful. This is _easy._ He doesn’t even need a sabre, not to fight like this.

He lifts one man up in the air and flings him to the side. He isn’t going to kill them, but he isn’t too choosy about how many bones they break on the way down either. The snap of a breaking arm bothers him these days more than it used to, but he’s not going to lose sleep over it.

Then a particularly nasty one shoots, sharp and hateful at Joris, and it comes too close, whistling towards him, and it’s going to hit –

 Kylo waves it away with his hand, faster than lightening, calling the Force. It flies to the side, and the attacker roars in fury. Joris blinks in surprise, as if he can’t quite believe it. He looks at Kylo with a wide open, disbelieving stare.

The others are fighting, and he sees Elith kick one of the guards with her foot, hard.  Kylo and Joris are a match for these men. They aren’t trained. They depend on weapons to do their work for them – but what’s a gun to a Jedi Supreme Leader? What’s any of this to Kylo Ren?

 _I hate that kriffing stupid name_ , he suddenly thinks. He’s mid-fight, swinging at someone who’s charging him. Words come to his mind immediate, unbidden.

_‘You chose a stupid name. What did you do that for?’_

That’s his dad’s voice. That’s his _dad_. Kriff.

Emma is still on the ground, gasping. She is alive.

The Force gathers around Kylo as he pushes the last two men back, hard. The others are on the ground, unconscious, dead, he doesn’t know. He hopes the former.

The last two stumble, surprised, but they don’t seem to realise what has happened to make them fall.  They are surrounded by the workers, by Joris, by Lisann. By Kylo too, who stares them down. They have lost their weapons. They are just two men, two stupid, pointless kriff-annoying men who’ve got on his nerves for long enough.

‘We’ve commed about this,’ one of them shouts. ‘Guess who’s coming next you shitpigs!’

Sighing inwardly, Kylo uses the Force. The man slips, as if he has lost his footing, and he falls down like a stone. His head hits the ground with a surprisingly soft thump.

The other, the last one, takes a look at the group he’s facing.  Grudgingly he puts up his hands.

‘Right you are,’ Joris says. He gives a hearty kick to one of the men lying on the ground next to him who appears to be stirring feebly. ‘Transporter, I think. Don’t you? You going to drive us to a ship in that nice car of yours, or do we have to fight you some more?’

‘I’ll drive,’ the man says, mutinously. ‘But you won’t all fit.’

‘I’ll go with you to my ship,’ Joris says cheerfully. ‘We do seem to get along so well. I’ll take another few of us for the ride. Everyone, watch him. Olos, a short word before I go?’

Kylo nods.

Joris pulls him quickly to the side, out of earshot. The rest of the group seem to be doing a good job watching the last of Bernhard’s men, and Lisann is tending to Emma, holding her steady.

 

‘Olos,’ Joris says seriously. ‘Listen, all right. I’m coming back with my ship and we’re transporting these people home. Stay here. Watch this lot, do what you do best. You and I have got things to discuss.’ Here, discretely, he wiggles his fingers in what Kylo assumes is an impression of a Jedi gesture. ‘I saw, Olos. I kriffing saw what you did with that bullet. And –‘ Joris cuts Kylo off before he can get a word in protest. ‘Later, all right, Olos? You saved my life. We do it later.’

Kylo just nods. He’s got his own questions to ask about why his friend, the self-proclaimed trader and logistics planner, has clearly been trained to fight in a classical, and rather elitist form. But _later_ is a sentiment he can agree with, now that they’re here in the heat of a battle. So he moves to business:

‘He might have sold your ship. What then?’

‘Nah,’ Joris says. ‘Doubt it.’

From his pocket, he pulls out a chain that Kylo recognises with surprise as being military technology.

‘Set the doors to fix-lock on close,’ Joris says. ‘Secret pockets, you know. I activated it right after he punched me, while I was standing up. I’ve got a seven-five strength barrier up on those doors now. No one’s going to buy it if they can’t open it. My guess, they’re still trying to pull it apart like a clam. They’ll never get in. This bunch of amateurs’ll be trying to crowbar and blast it apart.’

Kylo smiles. His heart is soaring.

‘Who are you?’ he says.

Joris only grins. ‘We’ve saving the difficult ones for later, my friend.’

‘But if you can’t get into the ship?’

‘Then I get into another one. Seriously.’ Joris almost laughs. ‘You seriously think this is my first time doing this kind of stuff?’

Kylo nods an acknowledgement. It is clear that it isn’t. ‘Who are you taking with you in the solar?’

Joris looks around. ‘I’ll go with Floris, Mauk and Gretha. They’re the strongest.’

‘Still,’ Kylo says. He hesitates.  ‘There are two blasters buried. I took them from those two guys last night. I think you should take one.’

 ‘I’ll be fine,’ Joris says. ‘I’ve been counting them. He doesn’t have that many men. He always keeps them at the distance to give the impression it’s a lot. I don’t think it’s more than fifteen. Nine of whom were here, the rest of whom this shit-pig –‘ Here he gestures to Bernhard’s man. ‘Will be calling here, if he hasn’t already. I know you’re up to it, Olos. I will come back for you. Keep the blasters here. Keep them for Elith and the others.’

‘Artur,’ Kylo says.  ‘We can’t just leave. I’ve got to stop him. Or else all of this will just carry on forever. They’ll get new men. It’s Artur we need to stop.’

‘So stop him’ Joris says. He gives Kylo a very knowing smile. ‘The force is with you, isn’t it? It’s with this Artur too, but from the way I saw it, you might be a few levels ahead. Do something about it.’

‘I will,’ Kylo says. He gives his friend a smile, and it’s a real one that he finds for him. ‘Trust that I’ll be fine. Be back soon.’

‘I do’, Joris says. He looks Kylo straight in the eye. ‘When the time comes, Olos, don’t let him hurt any more people.’

‘ _Yes_ ,’ Kylo Ren says. And he means it about as much as he’s ever meant anything in his life.

 

+++

 

After that, it moves fast. Joris and the others frog-march the guard into the solar, Joris driving. He does take one of the blasters, and he holds it in a way that reassures Kylo that his friend is not only not a farm-boy, but he’s also someone who can shoot.

Once they’ve gone, Kylo is alone with a small but very distressed group of people, surrounded by eight unconscious or barely conscious men. Emma is doing slightly better. She can stand, and although her face is bloody, it’s her expression that concerns Kylo more. She looks lost, totally absent from her surroundings. Yannick’s body is still there on the ground.

He sets the others to work on herding Bernhard’s men into one of the huts, showing them how to do it. They hold the door fast, keeping them entrapped in there. Kylo sets guards on duty. Lisann catches on, and although she’s not strong, she chides the others, gathers momentum around the task.

‘Don’t you idiots get it,’ Kylo hears her saying to someone, in a sharp tone of voice. ‘This is freedom. You let these guys get back to the upper hand, we’re back to dying in these fields. Get moving.’  
  
Together, they manage to keep the door bolted, and the men inside. They are plainly stirring in there, shouting and cursing, making threats that Kylo thinks, if anything, could do with a bit of work. He wonders if they’d appreciate the critique.

Probably not.

But then, there’s a noise from Tomas, a low, terrified noise. The other man had sloped off during the fight, but now things are quieter, he’s crawled back just fine. Unlike everyone else, he doesn’t have a scratch on him. He stays very close, too close, to Kylo.

Does he know he’s standing next to the most dangerous man in the galaxy, he wonders? Someone who could kill him with a single breathe.

A car is coming. Distant, two fields away, there is the dust of movement.

‘It’s Artur,’ Tomas says. ‘It must be. They said they’d commed him. He’s going to come. He’ll do the thing… oh Kriff, he’ll…’

‘Shut up,’ Kylo says.  ‘Stay here. Do something useful. I’m going to go and meet this Artur.’ Then, without ceremony, he hands the remaining blaster to Lisann.

‘Shoot him if he runs,’ he adds, gesturing to Tomas. ‘Don’t let anyone get it from you. Keep your back to a wall, aim at people that way. Keep distant. You can shoot from 50 metres and still kill. 507s are easy. One press…’ He shows her, letting it fire harmlessly into the distance. ‘One’s always enough.’

She nods.

‘Be good, Olos,’ she says. She touches Kylo’s cheek with her hand, and he allows the movement.

‘I think I worked it out,’ she says, in a soft tone that only he can hear, her lips close to his ear. ‘Solo’s a very famous name. Even where I’m from. Even in reverse.’

Kylo doesn’t answer. He just nods.

‘See you soon,’ he says, briskly.

 And then, steady and calm, he walks towards the oncoming solar car that he knows, can sense, contains Artur.

 


	22. Artur

As he walks the path towards Artur, he reaches out to Rey. By unspoken agreement, they have made the night their time to communicate, but Kylo knows that he can reach her any time. The Force that connects them is powerful, pliant to their will. It is in the order of the universe. So, he reaches out, wide across the galaxy, and he is certain that he will find her.

 _Kylo?_ She says, and her voice is soft inside his head. _Is something wrong?_

He projects the image of Emma, beaten and down on her knees, into Rey’s mind and she winces, sharp and raw.

_Who was that? Where are you?_

_That was Emma_ , he thinks. He takes a deep breath.  _And I’m on Yadrin. Hello from the most boring planet in the galaxy. We have fields and we have petty thugs, and I’m here._

There is deathly silence, as Rey processes this. In his mind, he can feel her shock, as she absorbs the information she has been given and what it means that he has given it. It is a beautiful morning, he thinks. Incredibly beautiful.

 _Yadrin_ , she repeats. _Okay then. Yadrin it is. We’re on…_ she pauses, but not, he thinks, out of hesitation that he might betray her, but something else. _We’re not anywhere. We don’t know where to go. We were on Teresthe, where it had been bombed. We thought we could hide out there, but they came…_

 _You’re not going to last,_ he says. It isn’t a question.

 _41 of us_ , she answers. _That’s all that’s left. We’re the Resistance. We’re trying to get to somewhere safe._

Kylo keeps walking, and the earth is solid against his feet.

 _It might be enough_ , he says. When  _one of you is a Jedi._

 _Then if two of us were Jedi, it’d be doubly enough_ , she answers. _Ben, we really could use your help. There’s still time. I know it’s you I’m talking to, I know you’re not only Kylo Ren. Whoever you are, we need you…_

 _I have other things I need to do_ , he says to her, and he smiles at her, only in his head but he knows that she can feel it just the same. _I just wanted to tell you, I might not be able to train with you tonight. But I’m fine, and if you don’t see me, it’s for good reasons, not bad ones._

The car is close now, and he breaks the connection with, what he hopes, is something like a hug, a warm pressure. In his mind, he can feel Rey fading out, far away, clinging on and on. She’s at the other side of the galaxy. She disappears slowly, like fading light.

So he meets the car, a crude form of a limousine, alone on a stretch of dirt road. Nothing around them but the sky, vast, bright in the morning light, and the tall grass and low weeds of the fields.

Inside, Kylo sees there are two men in front and a passenger, shielded by dark glass at the rear. He supposes the passenger is Artur. Dimly, he can sense the Force gathering there around him, something low and faint. It’s a weak signature, which doesn’t surprise him. This guy is nothing. Some countryside celebrity, some Sith wannabe no good kriff-pisser. The kind of person that he used to think he wanted to be. The kind of person he was.

He hails the car with his hand, as if he wants to be picked up, and with a screech of tires it breaks, swerving into the side of the road, scraping up dust in its wake.

Kylo Ren just waits. He puts his hands in his pockets, slouches.

Out come the two of Bernhard’s men, guns in hand. 

‘Fuck do you think you’re going?’ one of them says to Kylo, aggressive and squat. ‘Olos, isn’t it? The co-pilot.’

‘Kylo Ren, actually,’ he says, voice calm and steady. He looks them straight in the eye. ‘Olos was just something I’m trying. My name’s been Kylo Ren for a long time.’

They both pause, momentarily unsure whether to laugh or to attack.

‘Weirdo,’ one of them says, and he sneers and raises his gun.

The Force moves faster when you’re working with the Light. Kylo already knows he doesn’t die here, on this stretch of dirt road. His hand steadies the bullet, pushes it away. It lands flat in the dry earth, spraying a gasp of dust and then silent. With his hand clenched, he pulls at both men, choking them exactly as he learned.

‘I want to talk to Artur,’ he says. ‘Not you.’

They are both wheezing, convulsive and desperate. How many men and women has seen like this? They always think they’ll be the ones that can get away.

He thinks towards them, planting an idea in their minds, willing the Force to him, striving for control, for mastery.

 _Walk away_ he thinks. _Open the door to the car, then walk away. Keep walking, on and on, until you can’t go any further. Walk until it’s dark, walk until your feet bleed. Walk until the sun sets and until rises. Walk. Don’t stop._

He can feel resistance, but with a push of his mind it all just melts away. These people have nothing he hasn’t seen, nothing he hasn’t been. Power-hungry idiots, bottom feeders on the backs of people they think are important, parasitizing off the strength of the animal onto whose back they cling. The thing with parasites is, they’re nothing without their host. On their own, they’ve got nothing at all. They’re always looking for someone to tell them who to be. They bend to his will like smooth-spun silk.

 _Walk_ , he thinks, and he hears their compliance.

He lets them go from his grip, and they gasp. One of them clicks open the door to the back of the limo with a button, and then, their feet scuffing, they turn tail and begin to walk away, shuffling fast, moving forward. Maybe they’ll die, maybe they won’t. It depends on the strength they’ve got to resist the command they’ve been given.

Kylo forgets about them the moment they turn away.

Then a man steps out of the back, and stands up straight, facing Kylo Ren as if he were no one at all.

He’s tall and stringy and his fingers are covered with golden rings, as if he were an emperor. His eyes have the mad-dog look that Kylo recognises all too well.  He’s pacing up and down on the earth, his shoes scuffed and torn, watching the two men walking way with a fury in his eyes.

‘Hi,’ Kylo says.

He gives Artur a cool look, neither aggressive nor appeasing. ‘Heard you were on your way. You must be Artur.’

‘You fucking know it,’ the other man says. He spits on the ground, and his eyes are wild with something Kylo really doesn’t like these days. There’s a vague vibration of energy around him, but it’s so weak.

‘I do know it,’ Kylo says. ‘I think I know pretty much everything about you. And I don’t like any of it.’ 

Artur stares him down. Distantly, he’s still watching the two men walking away, just out of the corner of his eye.

 ‘Don’t start with me. I’ve got power beyond your imagining,’ he says.

This, Kylo thinks, is pretty damn unlikely. There’s not a lot of power that Kylo Ren hasn’t imagined.

‘I don’t like what you’re doing,’ he says.

‘Kriff do I care, muscle boy?’ Artur gives him a challenging look. ‘You shouldn’t mess with people who’re stronger than you. Think you can punch someone who’s got the whole universe on his side?’

 _Oh for Kriff’s sake,_ Kylo thinks. Did he used to sound like this? He almost smiles. No wonder his uncle never took him seriously.

It’s just the two of them here now, them and the fields, and the sky and the wideness and the wildness of the earth on a planet that revolves, slow and sure, in a galaxy full of light.

‘I don’t like what you did to Elith,’ Kylo says.

‘That rag-ass bitch,’ Artur says. ‘Her cunt was as dry as old bone.’

 _Master Luke,_ he thinks. _Uncle. I hope you’re with me in spirit for this one._

Neatly, he throws a force blow at Artur that knocks him almost impressively swiftly off balance. He falls just like a child would fall.

‘You might want to stop messing around with the Force,’ Kylo says, not unkindly. ‘You’ve learned one trick. You’ve got one thing you can do. But it’s nothing without training.’

 Artur is already back on his feet and growling, attempting to throw Kylo off balance with a weak push of the Force. It feels like being pushed by a cat. Kylo shrugs it off blankly, gathering the Force around him.

‘I did say to stop,’ he repeats.

He pushes back at Artur with his extraordinary strength. He holds his anger steady in the place where now he knows that his heart must surely be. He holds onto it and then he lets it go.

 The blow resounds and the earth shakes. Artur is flying backwards so fast – and then, with a wave of his hand, Kylo steadies the man mid-air, holding him taut against the pull of the wind.

He walks towards him, in four deft steps. Looks him directly in the eye.

 ‘Stop,’ he says, very clearly.

He can read all of the emotions rushing through Artur so plainly. Rage, humiliation, fear. Surprise. He’s wondering if he’s going to die. He’s spitting mad with fury and he’s afraid.

He places a seed of an idea in the other man’s mind: he shows him just a fraction of the things Kylo Ren has done. The blood, the pain, the torture. The slow, agonising screams of the victims. The way a  child looks at the moment of his death, how he still looks up at you as if you might protect him after all.  He shows him exactly how slowly you can drain the blood out of someone’s body, drop by drop.

Artur whites with shock. He trembles, held fast, powerless. He is straining against the force that’s holding him, but no one has ever got away from Kylo Ren before. Not in this kind of battle.

‘Stop struggling,’ Kylo says calmly, tightening the pull slightly. ‘I’m not going to kill you. But I am going to tell you, just once more, to stop. Stop using the Force like that. Get out of here. Wherever the blow lands you, my advice is to stay there. The Force will take you wherever you need to go.’

With that, he releases Artur, and the full strength of Kylo’s blow pushes the other man onwards, caught in the wind, away and away over the horizon, into the fields, carried swept away like chaff on a breeze.

The man who thinks he might be a Jedi after all follows him with his mind.

He sees the progress of Artur’s landing, smiles to himself as he watches the other man fall, with a groan, onto the back of a farming transporter. Artur passes out – from shock or pain, he doesn’t know. Wherever he wakes up, it’ll be far from here.

Artur is going to have a long, frightening journey ahead.

And it’s emphatically not Ben Solo’s problem. He shrugs his shoulders.

 _Power beyond your imagining_ indeed.

He walks back towards the others with a tiny half-smile on his face.  Probably, he thinks, his Uncle’s going to be pretty proud of him, for the first time in ages.

 


	23. Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no! But perhaps all is not lost! As ever, thank you so, so much for the kudos and comments. I have had a great time writing this story. It began as a simple thought that I assumed would lead to a 2,000 word short fic or so, but it has now become a 50K+ monster! Incroyable! May the Force be with you all.

 

Walking back, the air is clean and quiet and still. Ben, if that is who he is, feels light, as if he is made of the breeze and the sky. He hasn’t ever done anything quite like that before.  Even when he was training, it was always so theoretical, so abstracted in the texts and forms. He’s never actually _helped someone_ before by having used his strength.

It feels strange. His whole body feels strange.  As if it is both his and not his.

In his pocket, his lightsaber and the two communicators he has taken from the officers, still active. He turns one of them on and a deluge of messages floods on screen.

’06:30 Failure to report noted.’

‘Failure to report will lead to sanction 7. Agent to copy.’

‘Sanction 7 now active.’

‘The goals of the First Order are of paramount importance. Officers are obligated to report.’

On and on they go, threatening and demanding by turn. Kylo grins, just to himself. He doesn’t want any of this, not any more. Did he ever want it? He remembers what feels like a very long time ago, breathing in and out Light in the throne room, gasping for breath as it choked him.  He wants revenge on Hux, that he knows. He wants to avenge his attempted murder, such as it was. But more than that? Does he want to regain control?

This communicator is a lifeline to power. It’s one very small but connected link in the vast network that makes up the First Order. It is a strategic weapon in his hands.

On the other hand, it’s a burden. It’s surely traced, and sooner or later he’ll run into the people who want to find him. He’s only just left one form of slavery. Does he really want another?

He got as far as he could go, and it wasn’t enough.  
  
When he was very little, all he wanted to do was ride around on the Falcon. He wanted to see the galaxy and he hated being left behind. Well, he feels very much like Han Solo’s son right now, and whatever his father was, he was never a slave. Suddenly, he has a flash of golden dice, swinging from his palm.

‘Fuck you,’ he types, carefully, distinctly, into the communicator. ‘I’ve left the First Order. Just thought you should know.’

The message sends in a blink.

‘Desertion is punishably by Sanction 1,’ the message comes back.

‘I know,’ he types. ‘Come find me if you like. And you might want to check on a guy called Bernhard, working out of Landing Strip 3, Yadrin East. He’s the one who gave me this communicator. Your men are dead.’

With a swift click, he sends through his direct coordinates to the superior officer who is receiving them. Whatever he or she makes of these messages, someone’s going to be having a word with Bernhard about it, trying to sort out the mess of two vanished officers in a desertion case on a rural planet. The First Order don’t like loose ends. If there’s one thing Kylo knows, it’s that.  

He has now officially made Bernhard a thread of a loose end.

Then he drops the communicators to the ground and crushes them underfoot, there in that dusty road, until they’re nothing but broken plastic and metal.

At the camp, Lisann is guarding the door to the hut where Bernhard’s men are still secured, blaster raised. She’s got a steady hand, and she is keeping it aimed at the entrance. Around the door, she has stationed other workers, ready to strike. Anyone who gets out will be dead on sight. Kylo walks towards her with a half-smile.

‘Olos,’ she says, with a nod, sizing him up. ‘Look at that, not a scratch on you.’

‘Any trouble?’ he says.

‘None worth mentioning. How about you?’

He gives an elegant kind of shrug. ‘None worth mentioning.’

‘I sure  hope that boy’s on his way,’ Lisann says, gesturing vaguely in the direction of where Joris and the others are. ‘I think I’ve seen enough of this camp to last a lifetime.’

‘How’s Emma?’ he asks.

‘Alive. She’s inside with Elith.’

‘Tomas?’

Lisann shrugs. ‘He was the trouble that wasn’t worth mentioning. Be glad to see the back of him, I can tell you.’

‘Where are you going to go?’

‘Home,’ she says. ‘We’ve been here seven months. Let’s hope we’ve still got a home to go to.’

Inside the hut, there are shouted threats, murderous and vile things. The door is being pushed against, but Kylo has secured it well from the outside. It’s holding.

‘Shut up,’ Lisann shouts to them, her voice echoing.  ‘I’ve got a blaster pointed at this door. You come out, the first thing you’ll see is a bullet.’

 _Efficient_ , Kylo thinks.

Together, they stand guard.

+

It isn’t long before they hear the noise of a ship, the very same that Kylo Ren jumped onto on Ultaraan those short weeks ago. The engine sounds reassuringly steady. Lisann cheers.

It lands smoothly at the edge of the camp, crushing the grass where it rests, and the door (the real door, not that to the hangar) opens wide.

A tannoy sounds out, Joris’s voice loud and strong.

‘Friends of the huwtha fields,’ he shouts. ‘If you’re not having fun here, it’s time to go. Get inside, fast.’ He turns his voice serious, militaristic. ‘Mr. Olos Kid, report to the bridge for a drink. Failure to do so will result in your not getting the slightest bit of this excellent lime-ginger _ivresska_ that’s waiting for you.’

Kylo rolls his eyes.

‘And to the fuckpigs currently shouting blue murder in that hut,’ Joris goes on, ‘You trash-lives who’ve been keeping slaves and getting away with it. Don’t even think we’re going to open the door. Stay in there.’

As he’s talking, Kylo sees a group helping Emma to walk, almost carrying her towards the open ship. She gets in, heavily and on shaking limbs, but she makes it. Everyone from the main area is on board. Lisann is still facing the door, her blaster pointed steady.

‘They go first,’ she says, gesturing to the people she has stationed at the door, and he nods. There are sounds from behind the door now, sharp pushing noises. The men are attempting to break out with renewed fervour.

Lisann nods to her guards at the side of the door.

‘Run then,’ she says to them. ‘We’re right behind lads.’

Several things happen at once. The men and women guarding the door run towards the ship, and simultaneously the hut door bursts open in a screech of breaking metal and wood and Bernhard’s men are on their tail, running forward like hell. A blaster, Lisann’s, goes off with a sharp astringent noise, and there is a scream from someone, Kylo doesn’t know who.

He doesn’t think about it. He plunges forward into the fracas.

‘Get on board,’ he shouts to Lisann, who is trying to shoot, but whose aim is not practised enough, not when there is a mass of bodies to target, and movement everywhere. ‘Run.’

She throws him the gun, and he catches it, solid in his hand.

He can feel her fear. Bernhard’s men are injured, but they’re not out. There are a lot of them – seven against Kylo’s one. He sees two of his fellow workers leap on board, clambering desperately, and the men are just behind, so close. One of them has grabbed a foot and is attempting to pull the worker back down to earth with him. Kylo shoots, reflexively, at his arm, and there is a scream and a scorch of burned flesh. The man falls to the ground, and there is so much blood.

‘Fast!’ Joris’s voice shouts on tannoy. ‘We don’t want any hitchhikers. Get it together Olos!’

Kylo does exactly what he’s been trained to do for his whole life. He closes his eyes for the briefest second and feels with the Force. He can sense everything around him. He doesn’t need his eyes. He can see just as well like this – the movement of Bernhard’s solidiers, Lisann, running at full pelt towards an open ship. The steady warm heat of Joris and his friends inside, pulsing with life.

He shoots, and he’s almost sorry he has to do it. There is a scream of an injury, not fatal but severe. He’s moving towards the ship now, the last person, Lisann up ahead, almost there. Joris is already running the thrusters, preparing to take off. There is incredible noise and heat.

Someone has caught up to Lisann, one of the men. He has her by the throat. There is a horrific noise, and Kylo can’t aim true, not without killing her too. She’s so close, but she’ll never get out of that grip.

He’s struggling, and the Force comes to him in a great wave of connectness and power. Someone is trying to fire at him from the other side, and he doesn’t know how he’s got that weapon, but there’s no time to think about it, because Lisann is choking, and -

He uses the Force, fast and strong. He pushes, directing his attention and energy towards the man, willing him to fall, to crush to the ground, but his energy is diffused, there's too much happening at once.

‘Come on!’ Joris shouts.

 _Come the kriff on_ , Kylo thinks to himself. He’s having to dodge blasts, shield himself from them, and it’s taking too much. He’s not strong enough to save himself and her, not like this. He’s close to her and to the ship now, almost there. The life in her is fading out. He can practically see it, the way it’s ebbing away.

 _Kriff it,_ he thinks. And in a swift, sharp movement, he lets go of his shield, directing all his energy towards the man who is holding Lisann instead. She tumbles free, and he catches her.

There is a violent flood of pain in his shoulder, and a scream, and then he’s at the door to the ship, Lisann in his arms, and they’re being pulled up, and up, by what feels like hundreds of hands, all of them willing him to live.  He’s never been willed to live like this before. It helps. Kriff, it helps.

To fuck but it hurts.

They are lifted up sharp, Joris steering wildly, Kylo almost hanging in mid-air. There are shots from the ground, and he’s sure that something has made contact, but then they are inside, and the doors are slamming shut, hard and fast, and he’s there on the ship’s floor, breathing hard, blood rushing in his shoulder, everyone pulling him inside, desperate for them to live. 

Then he realises, with a sickening sharpness, that the blast that has caught at his shoulder has caught Lisann too, as she was there in his arms. There is a lot of blood, but it’s not all his. She’s hardly breathing, and there’s a deep, brutal incision that runs right through her upper chest, where he has carried her. The life in her, already so close to its end, is out.

 

 


	24. Chapter 24

‘Kriff, fuck,’ someone says, and Kylo dimly registers the voice as that of Tomas. ‘What happened to the old woman?’

‘Lisann,’ someone says, ‘for fuck’s sake. Lisann.’

There is crying, noise, movement.

Kylo isn’t registering any of it. He just lies there, blood thudding out of his shoulder. The bullet has gone right through his left shoulder, and into Lisann, direct to her chest. She is dead.

 _Dead_. He thinks. _Odd word._

 _Dead like water. Dead like_ blood.

 _‘_ He’s losing a lot of blood,’ someone says, but the noise sounds garbled, remote. He passes out.

 

 _Proud of you,_ someone says and it reminds him of home.

 _The great Kylo Ren,_ another voice says, mocking and cold. _A little boy in a mask._

 _Thank you, Ben,_ someone else says, and it sounds like sunlight. Who are they all, these people?

He’s giddy, he’s so high, above the trees, above the sky. Where is he?

 _Ben,_ someone else says, and it’s a voice he knows. _Ben?  
  
_ The last voice, older and slipping out of his reach. Something on a horizon he can’t find. _Olos my lad. Look after Elith, won’t you, son? Look after my Elith. Solo’s a very famous name. Even where I’m from. Even in reverse._

 _Kylo, are you there?  
  
_ He doesn’t know how to wake up. _I’m here_ , he thinks, but he doesn’t know if he’s saying it to anyone or only to himself.  
  
The smell of engine fuel. The noise of a holochess piece, thudding against the board.

_I’m glad your face was the last I saw. Better yours than anyone else’s._

_I’m here_ , he thinks again. _I want to wake up._

A smile, a gentle, warm touch. _Teach me the other things._

A whispered voice, right against his ear. The sound of the wind swaying through the fields at dusk.

 _Look after my Elith. I never held a blaster before. Did an old woman good, that did.  
_  
There were so many lights out there that he didn’t know a number big enough for them.  
  
_Ben, just come home. We can protect you. It’s not too late._  
  
A dark room, full of death. Waking up on a cold floor, the hum of the engine below you.

 _Kylo Ren, not half the man his grandfather was. Just a scared little boy.  
  
_ I WANT TO WAKE UP, he thinks. He’s trying so hard to claw his way out.  
  
Gappy teeth, a dash of freckles on a little nose.  
  
_Kylo Ren?_ A shy, hesitant voice. A child. _Y-you were the one who killed me. I th-thought –_

  
Strong arms, power. A swiping blow, a lightsaber in the dark.  
  
_Kriffshit to fuck, Ren. That hurt!_  
  
I have to WAKE UP. He’s thinking it so hard, but the cacophony of voices is hurting, it’s hard to get out. They are dragging him under, and he can’t -

_You killed me, Kylo Ren._

_Thank you, Ben._  
  
_Olos, my friend!_

A laugh, derisive, cold. _And I thought your bloodline was noble. Let me show you the true meaning of suffering. Let me show you, Kylo Ren…._  
  
He’s almost certain that he’s screaming. There is the noise of a lightsaber slicing though bone.  Is it his bone? He’s not here. He can’t be here.

 _Ben Solo_ , someone says, and they sound urgent. _Wake up._

A small hand reaches out to him, slips into his own. _  
  
Time to wake up now_ , she says, and her voice is warm, full of humour and light. He can feel the strength of her presence. _We never even kissed. I’ve been thinking about -_

I can’t, he thinks. He feels desperate. I can’t wake up –

 _Get up, lad_ , another voice says. _Come on, you can do it. Solo’s a famous name. Even in reverse._

 _Olos_ , another person says, and it sounds earthy and close. _Olos Kid, I’ve got an ivresska waiting for you. Open your eyes, my friend._

He holds onto the voice. It feels closer by, safer, easier to grasp. It anchors him. Closer, and closer, the voice is coming.

‘Hey, friend,’ Joris says, and he’s looking down at Kylo, face alive with concern. ‘You want to thank Kriff I’ve got such fantastic med supplies.’

‘What –‘ he tries to speak, but it’s hard to get the words out. Joris gives him a wry smile.

‘Don’t worry about it. You always were a man of few words anyway. You’re in the med-bay, such as it is. You never did get the tour of Old Rusty, did you? I shot you with amna, knocked you out, got the droid to patch up your shoulder.’

‘Lisann?’ he coughs out.

Joris shakes his head.

‘She didn’t –‘

Kylo finds, to his horror, that something is happening to his eyes. He feels as if they are … he is crying, he realises, abstractedly. What is that? Is he really crying? He tries to say something, but it hurts.

Joris gently puts his arm on Kylo’s good shoulder, squeezes it.

‘You’ll be able to speak soon. It’s just the amna,’ he says. ‘Try to rest now.’

So he sleeps. In spite of everything, in spite of himself, he sleeps.


	25. Recovery Positions

 

It’s the early days with Snoke.

Ben Solo is sixteen years old, nearly seventeen, and he thinks he’s tough. He knows that he can do more than all the rest of them. He’s Snoke’s favourite, he’s sure of that.  The way that Snoke looks at him when he learns a new trick… the General is just so proud of him.

Finally, he’s got everything just as he wants it. Sure, it’s not exactly like it was with Skywalker, the bastard fuck of an ex-Uncle that he is. He has to be a bit more careful in some ways these days, because there won’t be any apologies from the other knights if they hurt him, there won’t be any simpering, any Jedi crap. He gets cut, he bleeds, he does better next time. That’s how it is here.

He’s finally _free_ to be the person he is meant to be, and he knows the only way he has achieved his freedom is through order.

No more uncertainty. No more doubt. Everything is crystal clear, sharpened to a knife edge. A simple life. Right, wrong. Power, weakness. It all pares down to just that dichotomy, in the end. Those who have the power, and those who don’t. That is what matters.

He’s sixteen, and he’s in line to become the most powerful man in the galaxy. Right and power. What else does anyone in this life need? All those people out there, losers like his biological mother, who think that there’s more to life than power, who pretend that those without it still matter; all those people are is liars.

His mother, for example, lies to herself every minute. She thinks she helps people because power isn’t important, because the helpless wastrels she devotes her energy to _deserve_ it, despite being absolute losers. But all she’s really doing is shoring up her own ego, her own need for power. She’s totally dependent on it. She pretends power doesn’t matter as a direct way of getting power.

Now he sees that, everything is so clear.  He doesn’t hate her. He’s beyond all that. He just sees that in the end, there’s only one thing that matters, and he knows that but she doesn’t.

Oh but it’s all going well.

Then, for the first time in eighteen months, he kriffs up. It’s a stupid thing really, so incredibly pathetic to have made the mistake.

Normally, he trains with the others he brought from the Temple of Shit, as he thinks of the place he had to waste the last six years of his formerly pathetic life – Maura, Igret, Niam and Yeskaratha, the other ex-padawans who’ve turned their talents to murder. It goes all right. He’s better than all of them put together – of course he is, he’s Darth Vader’s grandson – but they can spar with each other, teach a few tricks.

Sometimes, it gets pretty violent. Actually, kriff, it gets ruthless and nasty, and it’s the kind of fight that his former uncle would have said was _not befitting_. Which is code for ‘an actual fight’. They hurt each other. Ben’s drawn a lot of blood, left a lot of marks. He doesn’t give a rat’s kriff about it. If anything, it’s pretty cool. All those times in Temple he had to hold back, had to swallow what he could do, pretend, be nice, be _generous_.

That’s over. Now it’s a fair fight between two people who aren’t hiding anything. He’s got the power, and if they don’t have enough to match him, that’s their problem.

He cut Niam pretty badly that day in training. A lightsaber gash to his side, ugly, welts rising around the broken skin. Niam had even _screamed._ Back when he was 16, Ben had still thought making people scream meant something important had happened, that your move had been good.

By the time he was 29, he knew that screaming just meant you were doing an averagely decent job.

Still, he’d cut Niam and it was obvious it was nasty and he should have pressed his advantage, and he didn’t. Why not? Wasn’t the cut enough? Wasn’t the scream enough? Niam de facto conceded, Ben de facto won. It was over. Except Niam hadn’t _formally_ conceded, mostly because he was down on the floor screaming and he couldn’t concede.

So Ben just left it, and grudgingly, had raised a hand to help him up. It wasn’t like he _cared._ It’s just what you do after training. You get the other guy up so he can go cry himself to sleep or whatever.

That night, he’d been called to Snoke’s chamber. That happened sometimes, when Snoke wanted to test his mental strength, when he had something important to teach Ben that the others just weren’t ready for. He always felt that bit more certain of himself after he left a private meeting with Snoke. Like he’d had steel injected into him, and that steel had carved itself around his bones, strengthening him, turning him into the person he truly was.

This night though, Snoke had snarled. Not the usual smile of welcome.

 _I am displeased_ , he had begun. _Highly displeased. After all these months, you have apparently learned nothing._

 _Well, I wouldn’t say that_ , Ben said.

And then, there was a sudden, terrifying rush of pain – everywhere, in everything.

He fell to the ground, forcibly on his knees, his head pushed hard against the cold stone of the floor, agony running through every nerve. He was spasming, each muscle betraying him, everything fizzing with pain, uncontrolled, helpless, never-ending pain.

Is this what other people feel? He’d never experienced this. Not so much of it, so raw, everywhere. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.

He tried calling the Force to him, instinctive, a child calling to a mother. Help, he thought. Help. He pushed the thought into the universe, waited for its answer.

Snoke only laughed, and nothing came except greater pain. He couldn’t access the Force. It wasn’t answering, wasn’t there. Panic intermingled with the agony. So much pressure, behind his eyes, in his ears, everywhere, as if he might explode out in raw, bright pain –

Ben was sure he was screaming, sure he was bleeding, that everything was bleeding. It was unlike anything he’d ever thought he’d feel.

A snap of bone in his left arm, twisted against the floor where he had fell, crushed under his own weight.

Then, abruptly, the pain stopped. In its place, weakness, soreness, ache through everything.

 _Enough_ , Snoke said. _Get up, you useless worm._

On shaking legs, he managed to kneel. He couldn’t stand higher than that. He tried, but his legs wouldn’t hold. He’d seen other people like that before. He’d always assumed they were just faking it to get clemency from him. Now he realises that sometimes, given enough suffering, your legs can actually stop holding you.

 _When you fight here,_ Snoke continued, and with a finger he jerked Ben to a standing position, holding him taught in mid-air, bringing fresh agony to every muscle, _You don’t stop until the other person concedes. No matter if they’re a fellow Jedi brat. You fight until they concede. If they can’t say the word, you carry on. If they’re on the ground, you carry on. You fight until you are given a concession of defeat._

 _I, yes, Master, I –_ His tongue felt swollen. He realised he had bitten it, while he had been thrashing on the floor. There is the taste of blood in his mouth.

 _It was foolish of me to assume you were capable of learning even this most basic of facts_.

_No, I –_

_Silence._ Snoke lowers his hold and Ben finds himself crumpling embarrassingly to the floor in a tangle of collapsed limbs. It is absolute humiliation. He can’t even stand. _You will atone. You will extract a concession from the other. If he does not give it, you will continue until he does. You will fight to the correct end. You will do it **now**._

A wave of his hand, and Ben is flung unceremoniously across the floor, to the edge of the door.

_Go._

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Although he can’t stand, he can crawl. He gets to the door, opens it, gets out into the corridor and, weakly, pushes himself up against the wall. It hurts. He is certain that his arm is broken, for one thing. For another, his legs are jelly-like and unfamiliar. For a third, he’s finding breathing slightly difficult. He might have cracked a rib.

 _Go_ , Snoke says, and the voice resonates in his head. _Crawl like the worm you are, if you must. I expect this to be done._

So, Ben Solo crawls, agony by agony, to the place where his former friend, his former fellow Padawan, is stationed, reading a book with his feet up, not doing anything much at all at 10PM at night. He looks startled when he sees Ben, blinks rapidly.

‘Solo. What…?’

Ben manages, dog-tired and broken, to lift his lightsaber. He can’t stand, but he can hold a saber in his hand.

‘You didn’t concede,’ he says, and it’s hard to talk. He’s practised it in his head on the way, trying to get the pronunciation right.

‘What?’  Niam’s face is guarded. He looks in reasonable shape, considering the fight they had. He’s had time to put something on the saber wound, to give it a chance of healing. It’ll scar, but it might not be in pain. He doesn’t take out his own saber, but he’s obviously thinking about it. His hand is moving towards the hilt.

‘You have to concede. I won.’

‘Well, yeah, of course…’

‘S-say it.’ The stammer, the slip of the tongue. Ben has managed to stand up now, propped against a wall, lightsaber held out in shaking hand.

‘You won,’ Niam says. ‘I concede. Shit, Solo, you’re a weird guy. What happened to you? You need to hear it this bad?’

‘You should have said it.’

The voice that speaks through Ben is something like his own, but it’s also something like Snoke’s. He can hear himself and his Master, speaking as one.

‘I expect you to fight by the rules.’

‘What? I couldn’t talk… you’d cut me, I was down. It was obvious I conceded.’ Now Niam’s hand is almost on his lightsaber, and he’s stood up, firm, preparing for what might be a fight.

It would be human to offer mercy, to let this go. It’s something that’s done. Except here, they fight by the rules. Ben can hear Snoke’s voice so clearly in his head.

_Conceding is more than just a word._

Robotic, purposeless, Ben moves his lightsaber, fast and hard. It swings into Niam before he has a chance to move to defend. It cuts right through him, and he’s down on the ground.

‘Concede,’ Ben says.

‘I concede!’ The words are choked out. There’s a lot of blood. Probably he’s going to die. It was a mortal wound. It was intended that way.

‘Good,’ Ben Solo says. And then, not looking back, he limps off, still leaning against the wall for support, until he gets to his own bedchamber. He locks the door, lies himself down on the bed, and –

It all just _hurts_. It’s everywhere, pain, soreness. He has broken bones, for kriff’s sake. He’s seriously injured. He’s got blood on him, and he can’t even muster the energy to move to the ‘fresher, to try to clean it off. He just lies there, bleeding out onto the bed, holding still, waiting.

No one is coming, he realises, at some point. This is seriously _it_.

He’s sixteen, nearly seventeen, and no one is coming to this room. Not now, not ever. There is no one coming here to help because this isn’t a place for _help_. It’s a place for survive, don’t survive, and that’s it. That’s the lesson. Snoke can do what he wants, and your only possibility is to let him. That’s what power means.

He lies there, and he waits, and the blood is spreading through the mattress. It’ll be ruined, but he’ll deal with it later. He can’t walk, can’t move. The journey has taken all he has. If he doesn’t move his arm, it’s bearable. If he breathes shallow, it’s bearable. As long as the door’s locked, it’s bearable.

Kriff to fuck, none of this is bearable. What the hell is he doing here? The darkness overtakes him.

The next morning, of course, he hears that Niam was found dead. He’d tried to wait where he was, bleeding out. Someone else had finished Ben’s job for him. The ex-Jedi were never that popular.

He never talks back to Snoke again. He never offers a hand to someone again. And he never, ever, lets someone off without their conceding first.

It’s only another nine months until he becomes Kylo Ren.

 

+

Light, gradually, filters into his vision. 

 _Kriffed if I’m giving up now_ , he hears.

The voice is vaguely familiar, reassuringly clipped and cool.

‘Emma?’ he says, drowsily. He can talk, at least. He opens his eyes, and the white ceiling of the medbay greets him. Under him, the hum of the ship as it moves.

‘Olos!’ she exclaims. He turns to her, and she is there in the chair next to the bed, Elith at her side looking frail and tired. ‘Hello. We’ve been taking turns watching you. That was quite the sleep.’

‘Hello,’ Elith repeats, shy.

‘How long was I asleep?’ He blinks, and finds that Emma has put her hand on top of his, where it is resting on the bed.

Her skin, caramel and smooth, is warm to his touch. She looks as if she has been well-healed. There is only a light bruise around her eye, and a bandage wrapped around her middle, discrete but present under her light dress.

‘About ten hours,’ she says. ‘Guess you needed it.’

He does feel strangely well-rested. There is a fuzz of contentment in him.

‘Where are we?’

‘Nearly at West Iderath. We’re dropping Gretha off at her home.’ This time it is Elith who answers. She looks so drawn and sad. Why is she so -

In a sharp flash of pain, Lisann comes back to him. The memory is visceral, raw. It hurts as if it were the first time. He sees her face.

He remembers that day after Snoke had first assaulted him. Punished, trained. Call it what you will. That was one type of pain, but this is another altogether. The two are different, but in their own ways, they’re the rawest he’s ever felt.

‘I should have been faster,’ he says to Elith, but she only shakes her head.

‘She chose. She could have run before they broke down the door. She waited, she gave the others a chance. Lissy was brave. But she wouldn’t have wanted…’

It’s obviously difficult for her to speak, and Emma has an arm around her, firm and kind. It reassures Kylo, to see that arm. It means that whatever Elith is now, and whoever she is going to grow up be, there’ll always be one person in the  galaxy who’ll come when she calls for help. She's not much older than he was when he was there in that room blood soaking into the mattress, broken arm. He was just a kid, really. Just a really stupid kid.

 _Two_ , he amends. _There will be two_.

‘She was very brave,’ Emma says. ‘So were you, Olos.’

‘You were brave too,’ Elith says. ‘When they were hurting you. You didn’t give up.’

Emma hugs her in earnest then, letting Elith snuffle into her arms like a little girl. She is childlike in her form, thin, delicate. Her whole manner reminds Kylo of something like what children were in his memory.

‘How’s Joris?’ he asks, more to break the sound of Elith’s crying than anything else.

‘Desperate to see you,’ Emma says. ‘Says you’ve still got a lot to discuss. In his words, all of it related to alcohol.’

‘He’s got your stuff,’ Elith adds, still teary and nestled in Emma’s arms. ‘The drone had to change your clothes, but Joris kept the old ones. He said you might want to keep them separate. The stuff in them, if there was any.’

_His lightsaber._

Kylo keeps his voice extremely neutral. ‘That was a good idea. I’ll want to see him soon. Who’s been dropped off so far?’

He’s only been out ten hours, but Kylo feels as if he’s missed a lot. He has no idea what time it is, or how many places they’ve travelled to. Joris has his kriffing lightsaber. If there was any doubt in his mind about Olos Kid’s Jedi capabilities, they’re surely gone now.

Emma purses her lips tonight together.

‘Tomas, for one. Insisted he needed to go first.’

‘He’s not very nice,’ Elith says, unexpectedly. ‘I don’t think he was very kind.’

‘Those shitpigs told everyone we were dead,’ Emma adds, with her characteristic direct approach. ‘If any relatives came sniffing around, they got the First Order to fake death certificates, said it was a chemical fire out on Yadrin. It was quite the time you missed, Olos. All of us calling our families and friends. Apparently,’ and here she smiles, just slightly, ‘my headstone is very tastefully sculpted. A friend of mine from the academy did it for me, all in granite and steel. Can’t wait to see it.’

Kylo just blinks slightly. He isn’t sure what to say. He settles for, ‘huh.’

‘Course, there’ll be an investigation into Bernhard.’ Emma shakes her head. ‘It’ll all be swept away, no doubt. First Order accountability being what it is. Did you hear that they’ve officially banned any media coverage they don’t put out themselves? Can’t so much as mention their name in a holonet post without being brought in for questioning.’

‘No, I didn’t hear that.’

Kylo thinks about the direction he’d sent by communicator to Bernhard’s whereabouts. He’ll be dead by now. _No loose ends_.

He can’t say he’s sorry about it.

‘Anyway, people were surprised we weren’t dead.’ Elith almost laughs, which Kylo is somewhat stunned by. He didn’t think she’d ever laugh, the way she’s been looking over the weeks he’d known her. ‘But I got in touch with my sister, Flourant. She’s going to let me come stay with her. Until things are clearer.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Toureth’

‘Bout a two hour hop from where I am,’ Emma says, and she smiles very broadly. ‘So don’t go getting too silly, Elith. I’ll be out there keeping an eye on you. Whenever things feel weird, you just call me and I’ll take you out for a drink with us.’

It’s going to be all right, Kylo thinks. It’s not going to be easy, for people to settle into their old homes. It’s not going to be straightforward to navigate the intricacies of it, readapting, re-existing. All sorts of things will take time and go wrong. But there is some small, real chance that it might be all right.

He manages to move, and finds that his shoulder is fine. It feels strong, normal. Experimentally, he moves it, and finds it about as he remembered.

‘Good droid,’ Emma says. ‘He did a great job on me too. Joris is a dark horse. Some of the stuff on this ship, you’d think he was… I don’t know what. An aid worker to the outer quadrant or something.’

‘Maybe –‘ Elith begins, but she is cut off by the medbay doors swinging open. Out of them, grinning, steps Joris himself.

‘Olos,’ he shouts. Kylo blinks rapidly, and finds himself being embraced in a hug unlike any he has previously encountered. It’s warm, and loving, and _pleasant_.

It’s not like the hugs he remembers enduring from his parents and relatives when he was a young child. It’s nothing like that, because he when he looks at those memories, it’s like they’re covered in a film of thick, cold matter. They’re unpleasant, giving off no heat.

He’s starting to wonder exactly how much he gave to Snoke, and how much of it was ever Snoke’s to take.  He’s sure that being hugged by your parents isn’t supposed to feel like nothing, that it didn’t _always_ feel like nothing.

‘See you two later,’ Emma says, her tone firm. She all but drags Elith away. ‘We’re about ready to drop. We’ll see you in the morning.’

Joris gives her a wave.

‘Subtle as a rock, that one,’ he says. He sits down on her vacated chair. ‘I’ll miss her terribly.’

‘Me too,’ Kylo says, and has the impression it might actually be true.

‘So,’ Joris goes on. He lowers his voice. ‘‘To wit. That thing you did with the bullet. That was Jedi stuff. And this - ’ He draws the hilt of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber out of his bag. ‘This is a lightsaber. Olos, you and I really do need to talk.’

‘Yeah,’ Kylo says, trying for the most neutral he can imagine looking. ‘I had a bit of Jedi training. Before things got so … complicated.’

‘Want it back?’

‘Yes.’

‘I can imagine.’ Joris quirks his lip. ‘I’ll give it back to you, if you promise to show me how it works sometime. I didn’t know which part to press to switch it on, and believe me, I don’t fancy getting that thing accidentally activated. I’ve heard stories.’

Kylo nods. His chest feels tight, as if he is happy. He doesn’t know that one. Happiness that feels like weight.

‘Sure. I could do that.’

‘All that time, mouldering away in Hut 12, and you could have been performing saber dances.’ Joris looks contrite. ‘And to imagine that I ever watched Yadrin 3.’

‘You’re not… afraid?’

‘Afraid? Of what? Having a Jedi on board my ship? No, but I must admit, I’m starting to wonder if your name is really Olos Kid. I’m wondering what’s really true about you.’ He silences Kylo's beginning protest with a wave of his hand. 'I accept you're someone who saved my life. I like you Olos. I'm not in a confrontation. I value my limbs. But I do at least want to know something.'

 ‘Olos is my name now.’ Kylo gives him a careful look. ‘It wasn't always, and I can't say it's my only name. But it is one I like. The way you fight, the technology you’ve got on this ship. Is your name really Joris de Pal?’

Joris laughs at that. ‘Fair enough. Maybe I’m Joris too now. Thing is, Olos, I haven’t been quite straight with you either. I’m not a Jedi.’ He holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘On that point you can be assured. No magic powers. But I’m not exactly quite as I told you.’

‘I’m getting that.’

‘I’m not from Yadrin, for my sins.’

‘Where are you from?’

Joris shrugs rather nervously. ‘Corcusant, technically. I was born there. I grew up there. But I’m – well, the thing is, I’m from a refugee family and we feel like we come from our home more than from Corcusant. Our planet used to be pretty famous, before the bastards blew it up.’

Kylo can almost, almost feel his lips upturning. Fuck the Force, he thinks. Fuck it to hell and back and back again. He knows what’s coming next, and he says the word at the same time Joris does:

‘Alderaan.’

‘You know it?’ Joris says, surprise running across his features.

 _I’m the Prince of it,_ Kylo thinks, but doesn’t voice.

‘My mother had connections there.’

This is, he supposes, not a lie.

‘Well, then you’ll know that – well,’ here again, Joris looks rather nervous. ‘People from Alderaan don’t typically love the First Order.’

‘Yeah,’ Kylo says neutrally as he can manage. ‘Yeah, you can see why.’

‘Right. So, I’m not exactly with the Resistance. But I’m not exactly not with them. I just help people out. I move things from place to place, you know. _Quietly.’_

A smuggler from Alderaan. Kylo would laugh heartily, if he weren’t so pissed off with the mechanisms of fate that have conspired to put him in this place, in the friendship and warmth of a man who is everything he has hated and tried to cut out of himself. Leaving the past behind is really working out swimmingly. Absolutely.

‘Things that wouldn’t help the First Order?’

‘Well, sometimes.’ Joris grins. ‘I don’t do weapons, if that’s what you mean. It’s more like, things people miss. Things that refugees especially miss. Things that connect people. I try to do my part by helping people who don’t have any place to go.’

‘But you can fight.’

‘Sure, I can fight. I’ve been learning since I was little. I went to the Academy on Pravantha every summer for ten years. But fighting’s not really my scene. I prefer language.’ Joris just smiles. ‘Fighting only gets you want you think you want. Language gets you things you didn’t even know you wanted.’

‘Why Yadrin? Why did you stay?’

‘Hiding,’ Joris says simply. ‘Biding my time in the dullest place in the galaxy. I mean, I really did have a drop-off here for that bastard, and in this case it was just ploughs. I get some extra money with drop-offs. Keeps me legitimate. And I didn’t expect him to gouge me quite like that. But truth is, it was kind of lucky for me. It kept me off radar for a while.’

Kylo gives a cautious smile. ‘I can relate.’

Joris laughs. ‘Yeah, I figured. I overstepped a couple of minor regulations, you know. Nothing serious, but I wasn’t totally sure that I should be out in hyperspace. Needed the heat to die off a bit first.’

‘Minor regulations,’ Kylo repeats, a definite smile crossing his lips now. He is remembering his father. ‘What were you smuggling?’

‘I never use that word.’

‘Right.’ What was the expression his father used to use again? ‘What were you discretely moving in a sealed box that no one knows about?’

Joris laughs aloud.

‘Private affairs. What brought you to while away your time there, when you could have been wielding a saber? Your love of ancient farming?’

‘Overstepped a few minor regulations,’ Kylo says dryly.

‘But the way you handled the First Order officers. The general way you’re so… You know. I wondered. You weren't with, you know.’ Joris looks pained. ‘ _Them_.’

_I used to lead them._

‘Kriff no,’ Kylo says, betraying fifteen years of his life in one fell and neat swoop. ‘I was stuck with them for a while, too long actually, but I got out. Leading to – ‘ He gesticulates around. ‘This. Jumping into your hangar.’

Joris blinks. He gives Kylo a long look. 

 ‘You’re a Jedi, _and_ you got out of the First Order alive?’

He stares at him, and for a second it looks like the whole thing is going to come crashing horribly down. Kylo prepares himself. The lightsaber is wrestling harmlessly at the side of his bed, on the table where Joris has placed it. Surely he won’t need to reach out? Surely Joris isn’t going to put these particular pieces together, it isn’t –

But then his friend just laughs.  ‘Kriffing hell, Olos. You’re a man who needs a drink. What a story. We’re docking in half an hour, dropping off Gretha. It’s late, but if you don’t think you need any more sleep… how do you feel about a nighcap in Restharna?’

Kylo stretches his shoulder again and sits up straight.

‘Great,’ he says. ‘Restharna. Never heard of it. Can’t think of anything better.’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone feel like guessing who Olos and Joris might be bumping into while they have that nightcap? ;) Lots of love to all.


	26. Restharna

 

As they walk through the ship, Kylo finds himself running through a great many different feelings. The first, the predominant one, is relief. Simple, pure, easy-processed. He is _free_ from the situation on Yadrin, free to be Olos Kid or anyone else he might want to be. Bernhard and Artur are finished, or as good as. Each step he takes feels liberating. There are no kriffing fields here. There are no berries, no huts, no guards. There are also no soldiers.

No, this is simple, civilian life. Two people about to go for a late-evening drink in Restharna. It’s not long until the time he would have normally trained with Rey. He wonders how she is. Where they are. Are they still circling space, a beleaguered group of 41 resistance fighters with nowhere to go? Is her life ever going to have the kind of normalcy he is starting to find?

Abstracted, he watches himself. A tall dark-haired man, walking on board a ship, next to a companion, a laughing man. They look like friends. Both of them are in their prime, strong, still young. Can he catch a glimpse of the sombreness that has dogged him all of his life? Perhaps, but only in the shadows of his expression. It flickers out and away.

Joris walks him to the bridge, where Gretha is sitting on the seat at the side of the captain’s chair, watching as her planet moves closer and closer into view, a great mass of ocean and land, islands, mountains.

 Kylo never really got a chance to know her – she was one of the many that he had so studiously ignored when he first arrived on Yadrin. Now he rather regrets it. She has a soft face, small and rather rodent-like, peppered with freckles, and whenever he has seen her, she has always had her hair braided up in an old-fashioned style. He heard from Emma that used to be, or perhaps still is, a loading bay worker.

He hopes she’ll have a good life, now she’s not a slave.

‘Nearly there,’ Joris says to her and she nods, her eyes full of tears.

‘Never thought I’d see it again,’ she says. ‘Back there, time was just endless. I never believed I’d really get away.’

‘Yet here we are.’ Joris’s voice is warm. ‘Olos and I are going to need to sit there to land us. You want to watch?’

It doesn’t take long. Kylo helps with the landing – he is somewhat amazed that Joris, who is clearly not an unskilled person, seems to have truly no mechanical aptitude. He can fight, can speak innumerable languages, has installed military-level protection on the doors and hold of this vessel, but he still lands his ship like it’s his first day on board.

When Kylo suggests, with what he hopes, but is not entirely sure, is what tact is supposed to sound like, that he might want to disengage the secondary engines before atmo, rather than grinding them into the landing every time, Joris looks as if this were a revelation.

They land in a side-port on Restharna, which in the night, all of its lights glowing on the hilltop it is built onto, looks rather beautiful. On docking, Gretha is straight out and leading them into the landing hall, almost running. She has nothing with her except her clothes and a tiny string bag, in which she says is just a change of clothes. She didn’t ever have anything else.

‘I’ve said all my goodbyes,’ she says, when Joris asks if she wants to announce anything over the tannoy. ‘It’s time for hellos.’

Waiting for her, walking to and fro in anxiety as if they cannot truly believe what is coming, are her parents and brothers and what might be a cousin or a nephew, a young-ish looking boy. They all have the same facial features, same peppering of freckles. She shouts to them, and they all turn as one.

 Kylo watches as this family runs to each other, in a blur of emotion, love, tangled limbs as they hug, tears flowing freely. Everyone is crying. There are hands around her back, her hair, encircling her, holding, touching. Her mother, clasping her so tight.

 He feels something flicker inside of him, some small and dim memory of something that came before all of this, before Snoke, before Luke. What is that thing? It flickers out before he can find the name for it. It's the same thing he feels when he thinks about Lisann. Exactly the same.

As he and Joris leave, Gretha turns to them.

‘Thank you,’ she says simply. She stretches out her arms to both of them as if to cast a benevolent spell, her tears still flowing. ‘Thank you.’

He has never heard such absoluteness of gratitude. It almost chokes him. He had no idea that anything like this existed in the universe.

 

+++  
  
  
He and Joris walk through the city, and it is an ancient, peaceful place. Houses are built into the stone, carved solid and strong, and the streets wind around and around the hill, leading up to a summit on which a small church is perched. At the foot of the hill, where they have landed, is a flat expanse of houses, shops, trading posts and space-docks. It isn’t a big place, nor a mighty one, but somehow it inspires a sense of peace, warm in the night air, old and strong. Kylo has heard of the planet, but not of this city. 

Together, they walk companionably up the hill, in quest of a bar. Streets around them curve into sharp corners, steps leading up and away into narrow passages, everything lit with soft-glowing street lamps and the occasional noise and music of a bar or a terrace. Sweet smelling shrubs and prickly flowers grow wild into the edges of the road, some night-blooming, their red leaves open wide like stars.

‘Looks as nice as any,’ Joris says eventually, gesturing at a small, tumble-down looking place called The Golden Bird that looks about half-full, with narrow little windows and a red-painted exterior. Kylo simply nods.

 He has never been in a bar before, not as an adult. The last times were with his father, on supply runs, when he was a little boy and he thought it was exciting to be allowed to go behind the bar. He is therefore in no position to say what a good bar looks like. Yet somehow, he can agree with Joris. There is something welcoming, almost familiar about the place. They push open the old wooden door with a creak.

Inside is livelier than it looked from the outside. A soft hum of the music of some kind of low-stringed instrument is playing, something that Kylo has never heard before. Instinctively, he scans the crowd for danger – First Order insignia, people who look like they may have an axe to grind, literally or figuratively, any disruption in the Force. He finds nothing. Only the bartender, a very old and stooped man with a bald head and a peculiar moustache, has any trace of a Force signature, but that’s fractured and opaque, more like he’s encountered it than he’s used it. It doesn't worry Kylo. Intrigues, possibly, but not with concern. For now, he thinks he'd be fine with just having a drink.

‘What’s good here’, Joris asks the man with a friendly smile as he edges towards the bar. ‘We’ve just dropped someone off and we thought we’d catch a drink before we go back on board.’

‘It’s all good’, the bartender says, phlegmatically. ‘We don’t serve bad stuff here.’

Is that rude, Kylo wonders? He has so little experience of ordinary people. When he was younger, his mother always said _don’t be rude_ , _Ben,_ _there are rules for people like us_. But then he left Coruscant, and all the rules changed.

‘Of course.’ Joris laughs, apparently not concerned if it was rudeness. ‘But what’s the best of the best?’

The bartender shrugs, as if irritated. He presents a guarded air. ‘Not for me to say, is it? Depends on your taste.’

Next to them at the bar, another man joins in the conversation. ‘Come on Jaman,’ he says, half-laughing. He, the man, is dark-haired and rather short but muscled and solid, with a handsome, easy-going expression. ‘Give them a chance. You know you're a softie deep down.’ He turns to Joris and Kylo. ‘Try the Orvalth. It’s the best they’ve got here.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Kylo suddenly notices the symbol of the Resistance, printed discreetly on the edge of the mirror behind the bar, woven into what on the surface looks like a swirling logo advertising a brand of alcohol.

‘We’ll take two. Thanks,’ Joris says, turning his attentions to the other man. The bartender slouches off to find whatever the drink is.

The symbol isn’t much, nothing you’d notice unless you were someone who had, for example, grown up in the household of the leader of the Resistance. Unless that leader was your mother. Something like that.

It is perfectly placed. They only people who would ever see it, draw it out of the pattern, are those who know exactly what they’re looking for and who have been primed to see it. Otherwise, it would escape your glance. Of course, it could be a mistake, a similar design feature that was never intended this way, but the more he looks it, the surer and surer he is that it isn’t.

The two drinks come then, strong and with a smell that transports Kylo back to the fields they have left, grains and earth.  He takes a sip and it is warm and rich, with a pleasant after-kick of spice.

The phoenix-like logo, the rising bird, seems to stare at him. _What are you doing here?_ It asks. Kylo has no answer for it. He tries to stare it down, but he finds himself averting his eyes, rather than look at it too closely.

He shakes his head to clear it. So he’s drinking in what is a Resistance bar, surrounded by at least some people he can assume are sympathetic to the cause that he has spent his whole adult life trying to purge himself of, and subsequently to eradicate from the galaxy.

Next to him, Joris has been drawn into a conversation with the man who recommended the drinks. Kylo only listens, nodding occasionally as Joris shares their story, a heavily filtered version of their life on Yadrin. He hears Joris and the other man, Ran, start to share travelling stories, to discuss what is good to do on this planet, to begin an intimacy the ease of which surprises Kylo.

 Ran summons over his friend, Martos. They find themselves a table and the conversation flows naturally, and Kylo, as time goes on, finds himself pleasantly warm, slightly drunk, and begins to volunteer a little more information, helping Joris to embellish, to correct a minor detail here and there. Ran and Martos are a highly appreciative audience.

He also observes more closely the interior of the pub as the crowds thin out to just them and a few other tables, all talking in low, easy voices. The Golden Bird, he is almost certain now, is a Resistance stronghold. The insignia is not only printed on the mirror. He finds it scratched into the wood of the table, again masked in what might otherwise appear to be a cartoon of a dog chasing a flock of birds.

 Ran also points out, to Joris’s amusement, that if you squint exactly right at a particularly ugly piece of abstract art on the wall, it looks like a First Order insignia with a glowing stick through it. Kylo catches his friend’s eye and almost, almost smiles.

He’s just playing at this, he reminds himself sharply. He’s not _actually_ a Jedi in the Resistance. He’s kriffing _not_.

He catches hold of himself. It’s the alcohol and the friendliness of this interaction, and the general sense of liberation and new selfhood. It’s Joris’s entirely false impression that he is a good person. It weighs heavy on him, that expectation. It seems to colour everything.

For all that, he isn’t actually a Jedi, _as such_ , because that was Ben Solo, and he certainly isn’t with his mother’s happy band of fighters, not for anything. Between the First Order and the Resistance is a whole world of possibility, and somewhere within that sits Kylo Ren, as was, Olos Kid, as is.

But then when he excuses himself to the bathroom, he notices a strange, crudely drawn fresco on the wall, in the dimly-lit afterthought of a hallway that connects to the other rooms. It takes his breath away.

The first panel shows an old woman, climbing a mountain. The second, she stands face to face with a heavily armoured man at the peak. The third shows the armoured man, clinging by his fingertips as she leans over him, leaves scattered on the ground. The fourth shows him falling. The fifth, the woman using the sword of the warrior to reach for an apple, apparent contentment on her face.

Underneath it is written, in scrawling script, _with only leaves, stones and sticks can the arrogant and unwary be defeated – OW._

Kylo blinks, disbelieving. He looks at it again, and he can make out the little smile on what is clearly K’than’s face as she confronts the warrior, just like in the book.

Kriff but he knows that verse, he knows that story. There, as clear as day, is K’than and the Warrior at the Top of the Mountain, one of the most famous stories in the Jedi cannon, the story he liked most of all as a bedtime story.

But what is it doing here, in a pub on Restharna? Instinctively, he runs his finger along the drawing. A sudden, sharp vibration of the Force answers him. He doesn’t know that signature, but it feels full of Light.

 _Ben Solo_ , a voice says in his head, and it’s full of amusement. _Time to come home at last._

He reaches into the voice, searching for its origin. It’s a man’s voice, old and crackled. He listens to it like trying to a tune a radio-caster, half white-noise, half voice.

 _Not exactly like your grandfather_ , the voice says. _Not quite. Not exactly like your uncle. Not quite._ A reflective pause, considering. _A lot like your mother. A bit more like your dad than you think._

Kylo has the eerie impression of being patted on the head, his hair ruffled as if he were a child.

 _Always wanted to do that_ , the voice says. _You were a good kid. I was always looking out for you._

_Who are you?_

A wry kind of grin. _Ask Jaman. He’s got some stories for you. Do the right thing, little padawan_

Then, the voice fades out and Kylo is left alone, staring at a fresco in a dark pub hallway, his finger still tracing K’than’s outline. For a long time he looks at the drawing, following its progress and back again, thinking of the words in his head. Rey had taken that story as proof that he was, in some way, still a Jedi – that he’d been one, that he could still be one.

And isn’t that, after all, an alternative to the story? Perhaps he’s always been a Jedi. He’s not been a very good one lately, in fact he’s been a downright terrible one, a confused one, a pig-kriff stupid one. But perhaps the person he’s meant to have been hasn’t been totally scattered into pieces, not quite like he thought.

 As he leaves, he thinks, just as he used to when he was a little boy and his mother closed the storybook, _may the Force be with you, K’than._ Although there’s never been any answer yet, he supposes that that’s just how it is with talking to people in your head. Even if they don’t answer, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a conversation.

Inside his head, strange words ring out, ideas he can’t follow, but which feel somehow full of Light.

Back at the table, however, it is becoming clear that Joris and Ran have plans that Kylo is most emphatically not invited to join. Watching the two of them, intent in conversation, Joris’s hand stroking, just softly, against Ran’s upper arm, the two of them leaning intimately in towards each other, Kylo feels like an outsider. He catches Martos’s eye, and by unspoken agreement the two of them stand up.

‘Might call it a night,’ Martos says, giving Ran what is unmistakably a wink. ‘Good to meet the two of you, but I’ve got a friend waiting for me at home.’

‘Right you are,’ Joris says, all ease. He has a hand snaked around Ran’s waist now. ‘Don’t keep a friend waiting late at night, that’s my motto. Olos, I took the liberty of booking us both rooms here, above the bar. Just in case we ended up having a late one. It’s a long walk back to the ship.’

Ran smiles at that, brushing a possessive, light hand through Joris’s red hair. ‘See, Martos, Jaman isn’t that bad, once you get to know him. He let them rent the rooms at half-rates.’

‘Once you give him money, he’s fine,’ Martos says, rather darkly, gathering his bag from the seat.

‘He’s a good man,’ Ran insists. ‘No trouble with what we are. Kindest man in town, underneath the grumpiness.’

‘I might have a word with him, actually,’ Kylo says. ‘I want to check something.’

Joris gives him a quizzical look, but doesn’t press the matter. ‘Room 12,’ he says, throwing Kylo an old style iron key. ‘For old time’s sake. Meet back here, 07.00? We shouldn’t leave it too late, with all the people we’ve got left to transport home.’

Kylo looks at Joris and Ran, now entwined, Ran softly kissing Joris’s neck, butterfly kisses everywhere, slow and measured then light and fluttering by turn. They look like a matched set, pale and red haired against tan and dark. A striking couple, a striking beauty of contrast. The display is wasted on Kylo, but he can see that it wouldn’t be wasted on everyone.

‘Sure,’ he says, a trace of a smile playing on his features, because _why not_ , and walks in the direction of the bartender, giving a cursory wave of his hand to the others on his way.

 ‘So. In theory, Kylo says bluntly as soon as he is within earshot, giving the man no time to demur or lapse into rudeness. ‘If someone, at some point, painted a story that was sympathetic to a _cause_ on your bathroom wall, who would that person have been?’

The bartender raises an eyebrow. Against his bald head and moustache, the overall effect is rather startling. ‘And what cause is that?’

‘The one you’ve got etched up on your mirror.’ He points subtly to the phoenix, the rising bird of the Resistance.

‘Don’t know anything about that. They send me this stuff, the companies whose booze I buy. Just a logo.’

‘Cut it,’ Kylo says, and he keeps his voice steady and slow, leaning in. ‘I _know_ that’s the symbol of the resistance. And I _know_ what that story is from. The one you’ve got on your wall. I know who K’than is. I had that story read to me before I could walk.’

There is almost an intake of breath from the bartender. He puts out a hand on the bar, as if to steady himself.

‘Who are you?’

He’s pretty sure the answer _Kylo Ren_ is out. So, he inhales slowly, willing calm.

‘My name’s Ben Solo,’ he says, and it’s the first time since he was seventeen that he’s said his own name like that, as an introduction. As something that belongs to him. He almost stumbles on the words, like they’re wrong on his tongue. It feels kriffing weird.

The bartender stares at him, taking him in. Without a word, he gestures for Kylo to follow him, behind the bar, into a small antechamber, scarcely big enough to fit a few barrels and the two of them. With a resounding thump, he closes the door behind them.

‘Ben Solo,’ he repeats. ‘Not heard that name in a long time. You’re gonna have to prove that to me, son, because if you’re lying, then let me say this. I’m gonna take that lie as a direct insult to Han Solo. I’m gonna take that lie as a direct insult to Leia Organa. And if there were ever two people I don’t want insulted, it’s those two. So you’d better prove what you’re saying.’

‘How can I do that?’

‘You tell me something that only Ben Solo ought to have business knowing.’

‘Like what?’

The bartender shrugs. ‘Tell me something about your dad, if that’s who he really was. Had him in my bars often enough, back when were in the game together. Back before you were born. You tell me something about him.’

‘He …’ Kylo struggles to think of what there is to say. The subject is too big, too vast to touch in any single set of words. ‘I don’t know. He had a pair of golden dice. He won the Falcon with them. He… always ordered things with extra _yadr,_ dipped everything in the stuff. He played holochess like a pro, he always opened with the Gripda.’

He manages to regain himself. ‘He wasn’t always a good man. But he had a good heart.’

‘Aye,’ the bartender says. ‘Reckon as that’s true. But anyone who met him once would have known that.’ He gives Kylo a long, lingering look. ‘Not seen Han for a long while now. Things drifted, once he got married, once it was all done with, our way of life. Last time was when you must’ve been a lad. Twenty years back, maybe more. He said his kid was off doing Force stuff.’

‘I was. With Uncle Luke. Skywalker.’

‘Said he didn’t hold with it.’

‘What?’

‘Didn’t hold with you being shipped off to some island in the middle of nowhere. Not a bit. Was hopping mad about the whole thing, as I remember it.’

This is the first Kylo Ren has heard of it. His father’s letters and infrequent calls to the temple had always been so lively, full of stories of the galaxy, adventures, ideas. They had never expressed any obvious doubts about the path that he had been placed on as a nine-year-old boy, not as he had read them anyway.

‘I don’t know about that,’ he says. The bartender shakes his head.

‘Then you didn’t know your father. If that’s what he was.’

‘Maybe not.’ Kylo realises this topic is a distraction, is not taking him where he needs to go. ‘But I know the story of K’than and the Warrior. Who painted that mural? It’s important to me to know.’

‘If you don’t what man went by the initials O.W.,’ the bartender says gruffly, ‘then you’re no more a Jedi than me. _Ben Solo_.’

Dimly, the memory rises up. An old man in a photograph, on his mother’s bedside table. Uncle Luke’s teacher. A man he had never met, but who had fought his grandfather. Had died to save his parents. Had, as such, implicitly allowed Ben Solo to be born. Had given him his kriffing _name_. How could he have forgotten?

‘Obi-Wan,’ he says, slowly. ‘Ben Kenobi. He was here?’

‘Right in one.’

‘When?’

‘Long time passing,’ the bartender says simply.

Kylo thinks of all the questions he has. The strangeness of all this, the way that the Force brings things together when you let it.

When he was Kylo Ren, he didn’t let the Force work like this, because – in truth, when he looks at it dispassionately – Dark Siders are afraid of the Force. They’re afraid that deep down, it’s bigger than they are. And if you’re in the Dark, the worst thing that there can be is something that’s bigger than you.

So for all those years, he had kept the Force encased in metal, in cold steel, in blasters and in power. He had almost forgotten what it really was. Now, here, as whoever he is these days, he can remember that it’s this – the ability to see and to feel connection, chance and possibility. Interconnected things that bind to each other, and in their binding, make new possibilities. It’s the stuff of everything. 

He was _meant_ to be in this bar. He is sure of that. He and Joris, dropping off Gretha, the timing of it. It is all for some purpose. Ben Kenobi, drawing K’than in the dusty hall of a no-place gay-friendly bar. Kylo Ren, touching the drawing, decades later, the words of his namesake ringing in his ears.

It’s too much to say this bartender, too complex, too private. He settles for something more practical.

‘Isn’t it a risk, all the Resistance symbols you have out there?’

The bartender only shrugs. ‘First Order don’t come to Restharna much. And if they do, they don’t come to this bar. Don’t like the kinds of people we have. Don’t fit in with the crowd. Besides, all the things I’ve got. You’ve got to know how to look for it before you see it. You think a First Order grunt’s got the first idea what this stuff is?’

‘Probably not,’ Kylo admits. There is nothing, after all, explicit. The only people alive who know the story of K’than (apart from, he supposes, in one sense Kylo Ren) are Jedi, or sympathetic to the Jedi cause. And the bartender’s manner, unfriendly, brusque, gives precious little away.

‘Ben Solo.’ The bartender repeats the name more tenderly this time, as if it is a name associated with some vague fondness. ‘Han said you were a good kid. Bit too serious for your own good, but not a bad kid.’

‘Yeah,’ Kylo says, and he feels the all too familiar stab of guilt in his chest. This man obviously doesn’t know his father is dead, doesn’t know how he died. ‘Well, I could have made some better choices to be honest. When I was younger. But I’m trying now.’

‘Right you are.’ The bartender’s expression turns serious. ‘How’s Leia, then? Only met her once, after Obi-Wan was gone, at the funeral. Good lady to her bones though. Knew that.’

‘She’s…’ Kylo struggles to answer this.

_She’s someone I almost murdered. She’s someone I last spoke to 18 years ago. She’s probably disowned me. I probably deserve to be disowned. She’s someone whose son betrayed her to become the Supreme Leader of the First Order._

‘She’s with a small group of fighters,’ he says, truthfully enough. ‘Out somewhere near Teresthe, last I heard. It’s not going well. They’re looking for a place to stay.’

‘How many?’

He can answer this one. Thank kriff for Rey, for her honesty. ‘Around 41.’

‘Ah.’ The bartender gives a philosophical kind of hmm noise. ’41, on the road and desperate. You got a direct line to them, Ben?’

_I can force project myself to my Padawan. To the last Jedi. To the girl who is the closest thing to the person I was meant to be._

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘Well then.’ Jaman gestures to the plain wall, grey in the dim light and papered with wood chip, next to the door. With a deft single step, he moves to push on it, lightly, and to Kylo’s surprise and amusement, it spins open, revealing a narrow passage.

They follow the passage out into a wide, basement-like space, with only some high windows through which the street illuminations dimly glisten. It is furnished with beds, with other rooms leading off that look to be similar. There are crates, storage spaces. It is a vast location.

‘Back in the old days’ Jaman says, ‘I used to have need of some private spaces. Not much use these days, to an old man like me. I serve the beers, I keep it quiet, I let the world be as it is. But if you were to invite some people here, they might find as the bar door stayed open after close tonight. They might find as they were given food and water, for the times as they need it.’ He gives a toothy smile. ‘Be good to see the Princess again. You let her know.’

 Kylo is thrown, for a moment.

‘Give it a thought,’ he continues. ‘I’m going to close up now. Time’s getting on. You go up to your room. If you need to find your way downstairs after hours, I’m not going to hear it.’

‘Why?’ Kylo says, simply. ‘The risk…’

A rather bitter shrug. ‘I’m an old man,’ Jaman says. ‘Can’t do much these days. Everyone’s dead. Obi-Wan’s gone, the others off living respectable lives. Lost touch with the old gang. But I’ve been waiting. I’m not…’ he trails off, trying to reach for something. ‘I’m not like you Force lot. But I’ve had this idea, long as I’ve been here, that there was something left for me to do. I’ve been hanging on for it, lad. This idea. I’ve been waiting.’

He gives Kylo what might, in some bizarre way, almost be a bow, and shuffles off into the front, to shout hoarsely to the few remaining drinkers that it’s time to go home.

‘I’ll talk to them,’ Kylo says softly. He isn’t sure but he understands, at least, the idea, through the Force, of waiting for things without knowing exactly what they are.

 Jaman has some kind of sensitivity to it, some vague signature that encircles him in a very dim glow of the power of everything. He, Ben Solo, has to do something _right._ He has to try. For whatever reason, he knows that it’s right.

On his way to room 12, he reflects. He can reach Rey, surely, although it’s late – but is this a good idea? Even if they’re drifting in space, without much of a plan, that doesn’t follow that Leia Organa has _no_ plan. He can’t claim a great acquaintance with his mother these days, but he can’t imagine her without any plan at all.

By now they may be anywhere, may have other allies, other options. Added to which, he doesn’t _know_ Jaman. His instinct is to trust him. But instincts, even in Jedi, can be desperately wrong. People can corrupt instincts.

In the end, stretched out on the soft (and surprisingly welcome bed) of Room 12, he reaches out to Rey. He can talk to her, at least. Present her with the option, let her decide.

The mess surrounding why, exactly, he’s helping the Resistance, what that makes him, what connection this has to his mother, who he _is,_ well, he studiously puts all that away, compartmentalised for another moment. For now, he’s content to be Ben Solo, in one way at least.

The Force, wild and strong, seems to loop around him, drawing him in. Rey’s signature, pure, water-like and flowing, stands out like a light in darkness. He can find her so easily now, all it takes is the slightest, merest touch, and even through a haze of sleep, he can feel her responding, urgent, present, willing him closer and closer –

 _Kylo?_ she says, bleary.

And then, surrounding her, deafening, there's the unmistakeable sound of an explosion, heavy fire. She nearly screams, but she's on her feet, moving fast before any sound leaves her mouth. Kylo, fast too, is running with her, projecting alongside, although there's nothing he can do, not from here, not like kriffing this.

 _Hyper_ , she thinks.  _We're going to have jump again. Kriff, they've been on us all day and night. We can't get away. They're everywhere, Kylo. There're kriffing everywhere..._

She sounds desperate. 

 _Restharna_ , he thinks to her, watching as she dresses, moving at lightening speed.  _Get to Restharna. There's sanctuary. I found somewhere, the Golden Bird, tell my mother, the owner's name's Jaman. He knew Han and Obi-Wan. Get to Restharna. Any way you can, get here._

Another terrifying lurch of her ship throws her off balance. She is dressed now, her shoes on, lightsaber at her side. He moves towards her, catching her so she doesn't fall. She is warm in his arms, her hands steady. He sees that she is scared. He can feel her exhaustion, the lurching of her balance as they are so close to the end of what they can do alone. 

 _Get to Restharna,_ he tells her.  _The door will be open. I'll help you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decision time's coming, Kylo/Ben/Olos! It's coming for youuu. As an aside, I assumed the whole way through that Joris was gay or bi, but I guess to some that may be a surprise as it was never explicit in the story. So there you are!


	27. The Night (Part One)

 

Rey is thinking fast, typing something onto her communicator screen, searching for Restharna, he supposes. Her hands are shaking.

 _I have to talk to Leia,_ she says. _No, kriff that,_ **_you_** _have to talk to Leia. How the kriffing fuck am I supposed to tell her I got this idea?_

 _I can’t do that,_ he says, flatly.

 _For kriff’s sake,_ Rey says. She punches something on the screen again. _Don’t you see how it looks? I can’t just have some magical idea about some… what, some pub. Through the Force, no explanations. Have you any idea how close we all are to –_

Another violent shake of the ship nearly cuts her off.

 _We’re not united_ , she finishes. _Not all of us. Not about Jedi stuff. Not about Leia, either. There are people here who think I’m insane, dangerous even._

She grits her teeth, trying to regain control. _For kriff’s sake Kylo, did you know that we got a call from Hux yesterday? Offering terms of defeat. Formal terms, a chance to have our lives spared if we give up the Resistance._

He shakes his head.

_There were people who wanted to take it._

_She never would._

_No,_ Rey says, and she sounds vehement. _Kriffing right she never would. But the idea that some of us might… I can’t convince everyone to just jump to the middle of nowhere. You’re going to have to talk to her._

_I really can’t. She and I…_

_There’s no time_ , Rey says. _Lieutenant Usman wants to concede. He as good as said so. If he gets control, if you don’t come up with some pretty persuasive reasons…_

She punches something into the screen, her face urgent.

 _I’ve just called Leia here,_ she says, and the bottom of Kylo’s heart drops out. _I’m sorry. Ben, I’m sorry. But if what you say about Restharna is true, if we can get somewhere safe, I have a duty to… I have to tell Leia._

Rey gives him a rueful kind of look, soft and kind.  _I know it’s not easy. I know why you don’t want to, that you’re not ready. I’m sorry. But …_

There is the sound of footsteps on the approach, soft but rapid tread. Kylo feels almost sick. This is too much, too soon. He hadn’t wanted contact with her. For Rey to be safe, he had wanted that. To be a different person, a better one, he had wanted that too. But his mother, that whole life that he left behind, the little boy he was, the man he is. It’s all too much.

 _I’ll be right outside_ , Rey says. _I’ll explain to her._

He hears, rather than sees her opening a slide-door to what, he assumes, is a ship’s corridor. The sliding sound of it closing again. Everything is dark – all he can see is Rey’s vague outline, the colour of it glowing bright and steady behind the door he can’t see. Next to that, another, less bright outline. Something he vaguely remembers. A Force signature with the sheen of polished diamond. Hard, beautiful. Full of the Light. There is the sound of conversation, two voices he has loved.

Then a door slides open, and there, brittle and fearsome, is Leia Organa. Leia, whose face is full of pain, shock, horror, things he doesn’t know.  She scarcely moves a step forward, and the door closes.

 _Hi_ , Kylo says, almost spitting the word out. It’s extremely difficult. He feels like he’s choking. His mother stares at him, like he is the strangest thing she has ever seen. Her cheeks flush. She reaches out, instinctively, but withdraws her hand before she can fully extent it.

_Ben? I don’t understand…_

_There isn’t much time_ , he says. He’s breathing in and out all the Light he can find in the world. He’s aching with the need of it. It still isn’t enough. _I’ve found somewhere you can stay. In Restharna. With a man called Jaman. He knew Han. He knew Obi-Wan. You can trust…_

 _Jaman?_ His mother’s face is blank now, smoothed of all its edges. It’s not just him who knows how to compartmentalise emotion. He can feel what she is doing, the flicker of the energy it is costing her. _I met him too. A long time ago._

_At Obi-Wan’s funeral. He told me. He can give you a safehouse._

_Ben…_ his mother repeats the word like it’s a language she has lost. He control over herself is slipping.

 _You’re going to have to trust me_ , he says, willing his voice to be calm and steady. _I’m doing it for Rey. Not for you, or for the Resistance. There aren’t many places left. This is one._

_How can I know…_

_You can’t_ , he says. _You’ll just have to decide. This isn’t … it’s not a rapprochement. It’s not something else._

He wants to say the words _I’m still Kylo Ren_. Except, of course, he can’t say that. He thinks that his mother is crying, but he’s hardly seeing her at all. The only way he can get through this at all is by not seeing her.

Leia shakes her head, wonderment, sorrow, the grief of loss, the joy of reunion. Around her, energy is crackling and fizzing like the sparks of a thousand flames, everywhere, diamond splitting into fire.

 _The Golden Bird,_ he says. _It’s a bar in Restharna. The door will be open tonight. Go in, go behind the bar. There’s an alcove, a store-room. The wall nearest the door pushes open. It leads to a safe place._

He makes himself look his mother in the eye, because perhaps this is going to be the last time that they see each other. He thinks about Gretha, the way she had run to her family. The way they had run to her.

 Blue eyes meet brown, and he has a sudden, dizzying sensation of falling, as if it was him, rather than his father, who died that day, as if he alone has the memory of the air, rushing wild around him as he falls, down and down into nothing but dust and bone. His mother gasps, and he is sure that she is seeing the same thing that he is.

 _Ben_ , she says again.

He really tries, with everything he’s learned over the past weeks, with every breathe of light, every part of him that is Rey, every part of him that is and was Ben Solo.

 _I’m sorry_ , he tells her.

Then he ends the conversation, abrupt and sharp. His mother’s image fades out and he is alone, gasping in the air of his hotel room. The minifridge hums soft static. The bed is still made, and his feet are solid on the plush old-style carpet. Outside, he hears the distant noise of solar-cars passing, the howl of a wild dog in the night. Next door, Joris and Ran are laughing softly, and there is a sudden, filthy moan that is almost guttural. Heat, sweat, the movement of their bodies.

He feels away from that, into everything around him. That was one of the hardest things he has ever had to do. Harder than killing Han, which at the time had seemed to be a necessary act, a required formality of sorts to achieve his goal. It had been harder than not killing the two First Order officers that day on Yadrin.

Harder, even, than killing Niam that day. So long ago, the cut of a lightsaber into the body of a friend. Him crawling on the floor, propping himself up. Blood everywhere. He should have got out then. He should have run so far, so fast, from Snoke.

Why didn’t he?

He’s going to have to live with not knowing the answer to that for the rest of his life.

Kylo breathes so deep he thinks he might be taking in entire galaxies of Light. His head is in his hands. He can feel that Rey is searching for him, reaching out, desperate for a connection. It takes so much effort to shut her out. He has to almost physically mime the snapping of a cord, the severing of two pieces of the same thing apart.

 _Get out of my head_ , he thinks to her, and he pushes her as far away as he can manage. He needs to be on his own. He’s given her the information, has done more than could have been expected of it. Now it’s for Leia, for Rey. They have their own destinies to decide.

 Next to him, the clock steadily flickers its light. **02:30**. He focuses on it, on the changing by minute, on the passing of seconds. It anchors him to this room, this space, and away from Rey. Still, she clings on, like a buzzing in his ears that he can never quite shake.

He knows the easiest way to dissolve the connection would be to do something in the all-too familiar mode of Kylo Ren. If he were to go out now and hurt someone, to seek out the Dark, that would sever him from Rey. Surely he could find a prostitute, even in a nice town like this. There are always desperate people out there somewhere. Or failing that, there are always regular people whose doors open at the push of the Force.

That would, emphatically, dissolve the connection to Rey. She wouldn’t be able to follow him to the places for which he already knows the way, for which he already knows the language and the motion. Filth-covered places that he’s been, that he could so easily go again.

He isn’t going to, of course. Even as he’s thinking of the options, he’s already dismissed them. He just _isn’t_. Of course not.

Distractedly, he thinks about Hux. He had offered Leia terms of surrender. He therefore knows how to reach her ship, how to communicate with her. Clearly the First Order are making a priority of snuffing out the very last and very most famous of Resistance fighters. They want her as an example. Something to hold up to strike fear into the Galaxy.

Kylo smiles to himself, just a little. Hubris, he thinks. To imagine that killing Leia, or Rey for that matter, would ever stop the Resistance. He had tried the same things himself, removing all of its known support, taking the most murderous of responses, and yet he had always known the limits of it.

In the end, the Resistance is only an idea, one name for something that has over millennia gone by thousands of names, and which is always built of the stuff of people just like Emma, or Joris, or for that matter, Lisann. If Leia were to die, there would still be those people out there. There would simply be another name, another leader, another source of power and hope.

Kylo thinks about Lisann. He can’t cope with thinking about his mother and Rey, about Obi-Wan and Luke and Han and all the things he hasn’t done with his life. So, instead, he thinks about Lisann.

The _S_ _asraham_ says, far beyond the point to which he and Rey have got, that death is nothing but rearrangement. A simple shift of Being and Form, from the Form’s control to that, instead, of the Being.  It is nothing to think about, nor to mourn. An inevitability for any lifeform.

The verse had always pissed Kylo off. He hadn’t been allowed to read it until he was older, eleven or twelve, under Luke’s ministrations. It was supposed that any younger, Jedi children weren’t meant to focus on death as part of training, as it was an incitement to connect to the Dark.

Well, kriffshit to all of it, he think, abruptly. Maybe he is a Jedi after all. Maybe he is _actually Ben Solo_. But if he is, then he isn’t ready just yet to think that death is nothing at all. He isn’t ready to become someone like Luke. So distant, so far from everything.

Lisann’s death was something. She was a kind woman, old, earthy. Full of humour and perseverance, and a kind of wisdom. She was brave and tough, and she protected Elith as if she were her own daughter.

He honours her memory, the way that distantly knows from his mother’s more refined Alderaani customs. There isn’t anything in the Jedi practises for remembering the dead, who have, after all, only been rearranged into Being.

 _Goodbye, Lisann_ , he thinks. He can only half-remember the words of the liturgy that is recited at state funerals, so he has to improvise it as well as he can. _For both the longest of our seasons and the shortest of our days were you amongst us._

_Goodbye, Lisann. For the shortest of the moments that we shared, you were my friend. For the longest of the lifetimes that I pass through, will I remember you._

It’s something like that, anyway. He wipes his eyes clear and focuses on what he needs to do.

The practice has steadied his nerves. It’s **02:57**. He mediates, alive only in the present moment. It’s enough. Somewhere out there, Rey and Leia have come to a decision. Perhaps they are driving towards him, and perhaps they have taken another choice. In a few short hours, he and Joris will be gone.

Against his better judgement, he activates the auto of the clock. It bleeps to life, so readily subservient, a simplistic proto-droid. Two little antennae lift out of the clock and, distractingly, it appears to open two slanted green eyes, as if waking from its sleep.

 _Hello Mr Kid and I hope you’re happy in Room 12_ , it says, its voice cheerful and in the same accent as Gretha’s. _My name is Bodbod. What can I help you with?_

_How far is Teresthe by hyper-drive flight?_

_Ah,_ the clock says. _Good question. At hyper-drive of average specification, Teresthe is 97 minutes by hyper-drive flight._

Kriff, so close. Nothing at all. Of course, they were in the space surrounding Teresthe. It’s perhaps not a meaningful estimate. Still…

_How many First Order bases are there in Resthana?_

The clock blinks its two cat eyes. _None_ , it says. _There is however one outpost at the central airbase._

_How big is that outpost?_

_Approximately 107.34 metres squared._

_How far is the nearest large First Order base?_

Bodbod the clock bleeps as it calculates. _The nearest First Order base of what you would consider large size is on Bathan 7. Bathan 7 is a drive at hyper-speed of approximately 730 minutes._

Kylo knows the Bathan 7 base. He’s been there, even. It’s the central hub for this quadrant and a major training centre for Stormtroopers. It was the first to pilot the use of droid trainers for combat manoeuvres alongside non-droid trainers for combat practice. He really doesn’t want all of those trainees and troops to respond to a call for reinforcements here.

If anything, he has to just hope that whoever is piloting can get Rey and the others here discreetly, if they’ve chosen to come here at all. If they’re being tailed and tracked, they haven’t got much chance. There’s not much of a window for regrouping, if the call out is immediate.

His own role in it, he doesn’t even want to consider. He’s leaving at 07:00. He and Joris have things to do – not the least of which is to take Emma home, to settle Elith in to her family. They have their responsibilities, and he’s fairly sure that’s something he wants to honour.

For want of anything better, he flicks on the holocaster of the room. **03:08**. The noise of the holocaster, blaring out an advert for holidays on Zegratt’s sumptuous and glistening coast, doesn’t distract him. It only calls to attention the fact that he can’t focus on a thing. The next advert rolls on, promising him eternally youthful skin thanks to a miracle cure patented in the sand dunes of Jakku, and he’s not even listening.

What is he doing, waiting like this? What is really waiting for?

Looking out of the window, the street is deserted except for a young couple who are kissing, pressing each other up against wall, hands rubbing against each other, clearly drunk, heedless. One of the couple makes a little shrieking noise, of pleasure rather than pain. The other takes a slight tumble, steadies himself against the wall, cavorts, makes a little noise of disagreement as if to say he had meant to fall all along. Kylo watches as they walk away, laughing, hand in hand. He feels sad, he realises. Watching the couple makes him feel sad.

At the back of his mind, he can still feel Rey, trying to reach him. He feels steadier now. The experience with Leia is starting to recede, just a fraction.

 _Rey,_ he thinks to her. _Did you decide?_

 _We’re coming_ , she says back. _We’ll land soon. We’ve taken the shuttles, landing at five separate locations. We’re coming._

He inhales sharply. She must be so close to him, then. He can’t feel where she is, only what she is. Yet, the image of her is so bright, so vivid.

 _Are you… are you there?_ She asks. _You said you’d help. Are you there?_

He doesn’t answer immediately. It takes him a moment to think of what he wants to tell her. He isn’t with the Resistance, and that isn’t what he is offering. But nor is he categorically, absolutely refusing her.

 _For a little while at least_ , he says. _If you need help, I’ll come._

Rey smiles at him. There is a tremble of excitement in her that warms him, that fills him with some kind of expectation, and some kind of hope.

 _I’m needed. See you, Ben,_ she says. She puts her hand on him, pressing and gentle against his own arm. Solid and strong, she burns with the Light.

 _See you soon_.

Then she’s away, in a flicker of the Force. All he can do is wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's day. More to come!


	28. The Night (Part Two)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 **03:11** and he is waiting. He tries to meditate, but the Form won’t come, not how he wants it. His whole body feels tense, warm, so abundantly alive. They will be here soon.

 **03:21** and hears a noise on the landing. Heavy feet, an old man walking. A sound that is almost a sigh. He is not the only one who is awake tonight.

 **03:22** and he lies down on the bed, trying, despite knowing it’s futile to even pretend he has a chance of sleep. The ceiling pattern is swirled, plaster that has been curled into a pattern. He stares at, counting the groves. Breathes in and out.

 **03:42** and there is the sound of footsteps on the street below, soft-treading like a journeying of cats. A rustle of the curtain, and he looks down to them. Eight people, heads bowed, stooped, carrying small bags. Dressed as if they might be party-goers, late night revellers. Not her. _Not her_. A push on the door below, the creak of the wood.

Downstairs, the thud of a door. A noise, a bump. The merest whisper of a gasp of breath. Then all is silent again.

 **03:47** and he’s aware that his hand is shaking, but he doesn’t know why.

‘Are you quite well, Mr Kid?’ asks the clock, observing him from the corner. He shuts down the automaton, so its antennae close and its eyes wink back to peaceful robotic sleep.

 **03:49** and in the room next to him, someone stirs. The sound of a whispered conversation. Smacking lips pressed to each other. He hears the mumble and muffled noises of sex, thick with sleep and longing. The sighs of lovers.

 **03:51** and the next group arrives, eight again. He’s watching like fever now. He can’t stop looking at the street, tracing every motion, every sound of the night breeze, every passing car in the distance. He’s aware of everything. Why? This night above all nights. He is supposed to be here.

One of the travellers is small, her head hidden from his view in the hood of a cloak. But the way her body moves, the way she steps, lightly but with intention, and he knows who she is. Who is he? Perhaps that’s the only question that matters tonight.

She walks towards the door, swings it open. She is leading her group. Courageous, calm. Behind her, seven people are gathered, whispering low. Whatever awaits them inside, it is she who will take the risk of it.

 _Rey_ , he thinks. He can feel her now, because her presence and energy is everywhere around him, her form and shape. It suffuses the air. He can almost smell her scent, that trace of sweet, spiced nutmeg that lingers after she has gone. They are so connected. She is so perilously close.

He can feel her journey now, can walk with her. He had no idea it could be like this, to be bonded to another person.

He sees her stepping into the silent bar. Taking in the simple wooden furniture, the chairs, the quiet of it. The only light is coming from the street outside, a steady dim glow that filters in through the narrow windows. The door creaks to a close and she moves behind the bar, to the little storage room.

With disbelief in her fingers, she pushes on the wall, just as he told them to do. He feels the surprise as it moves, swinging open. Her feet as she steps into the tunnel, walking down into the dimly-lit space ahead.

She’s thinking about him. He knows that she can sense the same as him, his presence so nearby. Her heart rate has speeded up. He’s feeling the way she moves, but her body too. Everything in her is so alive.

 All those times they’ve fought in training, all the times he’s touched her to help her to move into a Form, impersonal training, the way his body feels as it leans into hers. Her hand in his.

She’s wondering if he feels the same way in real life.             

Kriff fuck he’s not entirely in control of the way he feels. Not entirely, not tonight.

 **04:03** and the next group arrive. He hardly notices them, except to sense, dimly, the glisten of diamond on the air, and to hear the sharp, controlled step of a leader. These are the footsteps he has known his whole life. The first he ever heard.

She is alive, then. He breathes out a thought he didn’t even know he had been holding. Relief coursing through his body. Nameless emotion.

 **04:05** and Rey is so agonisingly, terrifying close. Downstairs, a breath away.

 **04:07** and he can hear her conversation, whether in his head or in reality it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s almost the same now. The two poles are touching.

 _Going to check the area_ , she says, and her voice sounds uneven, heady. Like she is sick. _No harm in knowing for tomorrow. Stay here._

 _Safe_ , someone else says, although he can’t hear much of it. Then she is moving.

 **04:12** and there is a knock at his door, soft and steady. The voice in his head and the voice on the air is the same, saying the same thing.

 _‘Ben_ ,’ she says.

 **04:12** and he’s opening the door.  
  
‘I told myself I wouldn’t look for you,’ she says as she stands there in front of him, and even though she’s trembling, he’d forgotten how sweet her voice is, in person not just through the Force. It sounds different. Stronger, more substantial. ‘Guess that didn’t work out so well.’

She steps inside the room, and she is the most beautiful person he has ever seen. Strong, full of Light. His Padawan, his friend. The person he could have been, and something like the person he might still be, if he’s very, very lucky someday.

‘I’m glad you did,’ he says. ‘I was thinking about the same thing.’

Both of them are smiling.

‘Ben,’ she says, and it’s almost a question.

He just nods, hardly able to speak.

 **04:13** and he’s holding out his hands to her, offering her everything he has to give. Once upon a time, it was an empire he had, or so he had thought. Now it’s just himself that he has to offer. The person he is, the things he’s done, and the things he’s going to do. All of it, that which she already knows and that which she might, if she chooses, one day come to know.

 **04:13** and she’s taken his hands in hers, pulling him in towards her. She is warm, and it’s nothing at all like touching her in through the Force. Nothing like that.

She’s touching his face now, putting a hand through his hair. Reaching up to him. Drawing him into her, asking for connection. Expecting it, needing it.

 _Can I_ , he thinks, or perhaps only says. She inclines her head, or perhaps she’s only thinking too.

 _Yes_ , she says. _Yes._

 **04:14** , and he’s kissing her, and her lips taste like forgiveness, like the sweetest thing he’s ever known.


	29. Chapter 29

 

 

Her legs fasten instinctively around his waist as he lifts her up for better access. She is so small, but not delicate. She is strong. She kisses fiercely, full of passion and energy. He has never kissed anyone who is like this before. Never done anything at all like this.

It feels overwhelming. There is so much of her, so much to touch, to hold. She is everywhere. In his head, his arms, on his lips.

The Force around them moves golden, like sunset, like molten metal, thick and heavy, as if time itself is slowing. It is intoxicating.

She has one arm around his shoulders, holding onto him, but then she snakes her other hand down, pushing against his cock, against the fabric of his trousers. White heat surges through him. He runs his hand through her hair, hard, loosening it, runs his fingers on her neck, on the softness of her skin. Kisses her again, again.

 _Want_ , she thinks, hurriedly. _Have been wanting._

Her hand is steady, insistent.

 _I’ve been wanting too_ , he thinks.  

She kisses him again, her tongue in his mouth. She licks against his lip and then nips, pulling his lips towards her in a bite.

 He’s pretty sure that Jedi don’t, as a rule, moan with pleasure. He is, of course, not entirely sure that he _is_ a Jedi anyway. So he moans with pleasure and she responds with her hand, with increased pressure, friction, her hand moving in a slow, firm rhythm.

 _I’ll give you anything Ben,_ she thinks. _Anything. All you have to do is ask._

Her mouth bites, licks, at his neck, finding the sensitivity there. He can’t think straight. His hand, holding her, runs along the contours of her.

 _Everything_ , he answers. _I want everything._

Her kiss nearly knocks him off balance. It is ferocious. And then, kriff it all to hell, her communicator bleeps, incongruous, disruptive.  

 _Fuck,_ she thinks. _Have to answer._

She drops to the ground, standing up. Her hand is still against his cock, tracing languid circles, possessive, warm, and she keeps it there as with her other she checks the communicator.

Whatever she reads though, it makes her withdraw her hand sharply. Her face goes white.

 _‘_ The last group was trailed,’ she says to him, a hand running through her hair. ‘Kriff, Poe’s group. They weren’t back yet. They’ve had to divert course. He’s being chased by a command ship.’

‘Who’s…’ he shakes his head to clear it. ‘Who is Poe?’

‘My friend.’

‘And he was…’

‘In the last group. The last eight. He thinks they’re being tracked. He can’t land here.’

‘Ah.’

He isn’t sure exactly what to feel. Irritation at this Poe for the distraction, but surely this must be an unworthy thought. He senses her instinctive distress, her fear. He tries not to focus on it, but it permeates the room, bleeding through the warmth of her happiness, the flush of her desire.

Kriff, her desire. His own. He can’t think about it.

‘I have to…’ she gestures with her hand as if towards the basement, where, Kylo supposes, his mother must also be. ‘Ben, I’m…’

She looks at him then, eyes wide and clear. Her lips are pinked, swollen, and her hair is undone, flowing around her face. He can sense her heartbeat, still too fast. Her pupils are shot wide. She is beautiful and wild. He has no right to ask anything of her.

He wants to kiss her again, to lie her down on the bed, to undress her slowly, item by item, until all that’s left is her skin itself. Every part of that skin, he wants to touch, with his hands, his mouth, his cock. The swell of her breast and the curve of her hip, the softness of her neck, the reach of her inner thigh. He can imagine his fingers, running slowly on her thighs, inward. Has anyone ever touched her like that?  
  
He can imagine the warmth between her legs, the way her cunt would be smooth, soft, yielding. How he could just raise a single finger, press against her there, the way she’d tremble –

All those things he never did in the way they’re supposed to be done. With love, with time, with consideration and care. He wants to do all of them to her.

 _Kriff_. He stops himself from going further. He is sure she can sense what he’s thinking, because a flush is rising on her cheeks. She isn’t backing away, he notices, but she remains worried-looking.

‘You should come,’ she says. ‘Come with us. I don’t want to leave you. Not like this…’

‘I can’t,’ he says, blank, immediate. He tries to regain his sense of self, of sanity. Sex always does throw people off their game. He’d forgotten that. He has to remember who he is.

  ‘You think the Resistance is going to welcome Kylo Ren?’

‘You’re not him.’

‘I am. I was. I have his face, his memories. Everything he did. He’s still someone I’m capable of being.’

A call comes through for Rey, and she answers without a pause.

‘Back shortly,’ she says into the communicator. ‘Yes, back shortly. Understood.’ A long pause while she listens, then a flicker of something passes over her face. ‘Understood. I’ll be there.’

She holds out her hand for him to take, and he does so. She is so warm. It’s nothing at all like a Force projection.

‘Thank you,’ she says.

‘For what?’

‘All of it.’ She smiles at him, half-sad, as she fastens her hair back into place, straightens her clothes. ‘Poe’s going to land on Bazrahat, the next city along. He can make it look like that was his destination. It’s a bigger place, there’s a chance… if he can get to the ground, if he can get even a minute’s advantage…’

He suddenly understands.

‘You’re going there too.’

‘He’s my friend.’ Rey’s face takes on a hard edge. ‘I can’t leave him to fight there alone. Not against all of them. I just can’t, Ben. Is that what a Jedi would do? Leave a friend to die?’

‘No,’ he says, and the answer comes easily now. ‘Jedi don’t do that.’

‘I have to.’

He moves towards her and, without knowing why, puts an arm around her. It feels so good to touch someone. It’s been so long, a lifetime. It feels so impossibly good to just be able to touch someone like this. She responds simply, drawing close to him.

‘How many to fight?’ he asks her. Now, he realises, he can touch her any time. Even now, he can hear the word on the air, in her body, in the way she is leaning in to him, the press of her hand. _Yes_ , she is saying. His own body is answering. _Yes._

‘I don’t know. Too many. I need to go down for a private briefing with Leia. Poe communicated with her directly. I think he’s in real trouble.’

Kylo is thinking fast. Weighing up a series of options, understanding things that he should have understood a lifetime ago. He already knows what he has to do. The fact that he doesn’t want to do it is really only incidental.

If someone is out there, tracking what they think is the Resistance, and they have found a ship – one of whose crew, they may assume, is a Jedi, they will send strength. There will be raw, brute power on display. Hux is afraid of the Force. He’s afraid of Rey.

He will want her to be snuffed out, and he will want to see it.

Kylo knows what he has to do.

 ‘You can take our ship,’ he says. ‘My friend and I, we’ll take you there. You can -’ He grits his teeth, wills strength in his soul, whatever might be left of it. ‘I think you should tell my – that is, Leia to come here. I think we have to speak.’

She blinks, rapidly, and then looks at him, full of kindness, full of doubt.

‘Are you s-‘

‘Do it now. Before I back out and burn a hole through something with my saber.’

His hand at his side is clenched, but he knows it’s the right thing that he’s doing. Whoever he is and whatever path he’s on, it’s _right_. He knows that, the same way he knows the Force, the same way he knows that the last three weeks have been the most important of his life.

Rey nods, and clearly dials her communicator back to Leia.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘General, you have to come up here. To Room 12. Your… I’m here with Ben Solo. We have to speak to you.’

There is a moment in which Kylo considers, actively considers, taking his lightsaber and running. He breathes in and out Light. He thinks about Lisann, about the kind of person she was. About Luke, and the ways in which he let him down.

His dad. Han, the chances he didn’t take. The whole sad mess of it.  

‘Yes,’ Rey says. ‘No, I’m not in any danger. He’s… I’m fine. I’m not being held hostage.’

He grits his teeth. For _kriff’s sake_ , he thinks. He gestures to the phone, to take it over. Irritation, the lesser but important cousin of rage, is a wonderful way of getting over your distaste for things you don’t want to do. Snoke had taught him that.

‘Hi’ he says, and he hears his mother’s sharp gasp of breath. ‘I’m not holding her hostage. Don’t bring troops with you. I’m…’

He isn’t really sure what to say at this stage.

‘I’m willing to help,’ he says. ‘I’ve stopped killing people. Trust it or don’t.’

There is a sigh at the other end of the line. Then an assent, a murmur. She ends the call. He turns to Rey.

‘She’s coming.’

Rey nods, brusque, well-trained. He is proud of her equanimity. Then, suddenly, her expression alters.

‘At least two minutes before she gets here,’ she says.

He walks over to her, lifts his hands to her face.

‘A whole two minutes,’ he says.

The brown of her eyes is quite perfect. He kisses her.

‘You should have kissed me in training,’ she says.

He smiles at her, and it’s so easy now, to smile. How could he ever have forgotten this? ‘I thought about it once or twice. But after seeing you fight, I’m not sure I would have risked it.’

She grins back.

‘I might have tried to run my saber through you at first, I admit. Things changed.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah.’ Rey kisses him, quick and tender, standing up on her tiptoes to reach. ‘You started being nice.’

He kisses her too, running his hand down her back. ‘Ah, I see. I wish I’d known earlier that being nice is all there is to it.’

And then there is a knock at the door, and all flirtation and heat rushes out of the room, replaced by anxiety, trepidation. He hangs back, walking away. His hand in his pocket almost, almost reaches for his lightsaber.

 _Get a grip_ , he thinks to himself.

 Rey opens the door, and there, face haggard, sleep deprivation and worry showing through, is his mother.


	30. Chapter 30

 

Leia’s eyes are very wide as she looks at both of them. She takes a step backwards, nearly tripping.

‘Ben,’ she says.

Kylo nods at her and then inclines his head, bowing it low. He cannot look at her. He simply cannot.

‘Three conversations in 24 hours,’ she says dryly, her voice not quite steady. She isn’t making eye contact either. ‘Almost makes up for the last 15 years.’

His hand is shaking.

‘We have bigger problems,’ Rey points out. Of the three, she is the only one whose composure can hold.  Leia steps in and closes the door.

She shakes her head, sits down in the room’s one and only chair. Kylo realises it is because she cannot stand. Her legs are visibly shaking, although she looks composed on the surface. ‘They must think he’s got all of us on board. He’s got a command ship chasing him, apparently. They caught up to him just past Yifriga.’  

‘Who’s trailing?’ Rey asks. ‘How many?’

‘Four fighters and the command. Practically a battalion.’

‘ _Kriff_.’

‘He’s shaken them off for now, but he can’t outrun them.’ Leia sighs. She sounds so terribly old, Kylo thinks. He scarcely knows this woman in front of him. She is a series of memories made flesh; things he has forgotten, things that he thought could stay buried. He is in the presence of a ghost.

 ‘He’s got to land. His only chance is during the landing…’

‘They’ll send more,’ Rey says. ‘If they don’t get him.’

‘I know.’

‘I have to go,’ Rey says. Leia shakes her head brusquely, as if to ward off a buzzing fly.

‘You don’t, Rey. He knew what he was doing when he redirected them. He understood what it was that he was doing. They all did. If you go… ‘

‘I have to,’ Rey repeats. ‘Don’t you see that? Leia, if he dies there, if they all do, I’ve as good as …’ She grits her teeth. ‘This is what I’m supposed to do, General.  We will come back. I promise you that.’

He still hasn’t spoken. He can’t find any words. In his head, he can feel the Force, strong, circling. He and Rey are so connected that almost feels as if he is in two bodies, two minds.  He can trace the heat of her skin, the smooth suppleness of it, can feel the steady beat of her heart.

He lets her presence suffuse him, certain and clear, bright and light as glass or water in sunlight. There is no ambiguity in Rey. She feels the need to help her friend, like a beacon. It calls to her, even stronger than the other things she desires.

His Padawan is stronger than he has ever been, he thinks. The thought helps him find his voice.

‘What kind of fighters?’ he asks, unsure if it is professional interest or concern that is motivating him, aware that it might be both. This is one of the strangest situations of his life, he thinks. And he’s had quite some.  All he can do is to focus on the business of the warfare ahead. If he can do that, if he can keep Rey in his mind, keep that link, then there is some chance he will get through this.

His mother turns to him, but she still isn’t looking. ‘X89s. Weren’t you the one who ordered those to be deployed?’

He wastes no time on the subtleties of that question, the answer being both obvious and complicated all at once.  Kylo’s breath feels like it’s catching in his throat. The energy between them crackles like tinder aflame. He doesn’t know what it is. He doesn’t know what to do with it. It _hurts_.

‘If all else fails, he should spin fast on landing,’ he says, flatly, twirling his hand uncomfortably, aware of his own unease. The magnitude of the betrayal he is about to commit refuses to strike at him. He feels distant now, remote from it all.

‘He should even crash land, if he can. X89s are hard-wired for smooth landing. It’s almost automated. If the person they’re chasing makes it a hard landing, it throws them off. They can’t chase, once they’re within ground level space. It’d give them a couple of extra minutes to get out, at least.’ He grits his teeth. ‘It’s a known fault. We overlooked it.’

 ‘ _We_ ,’ Leia repeats, disgust suddenly evident in her expression.  ‘For god’s sake Ben.’

She does look at him then, and for a second their eyes meet.  Her disappointment. Her rage, her absolute despair. Her hope, cautiously guarded, uncertain and small. It’s all written there, for anyone to see.

He blinks. He tries to project something back to her, some measure of the person he is trying to be. All the Light, all the things he’s finding that he still knows. Perhaps it works, because he sees her face flicker slightly, almost imperceptible.

‘It’ll take more than that,’ she says, but her voice is cracked.

‘I know.’

‘What else do you have?’

 ‘I’m going with her,’ he says and his mother winces slightly. ‘She can board our ship. I’m travelling with another man and some more people we’re … responsible for. It won’t be detected when I go back on board with her. We can get there.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Leia says. ‘I’m not putting her in an unknown vessel. It’s not safe.’

‘Leia,’ Rey says, almost gently, and she stretches out a hand so that she touches Kylo’s arm. The touch warms him, gives him strength. He fractionally releases some of the tension he is storing in every muscle. Rey doesn’t need to finish her sentence. The rest is obvious: _I’m going with him._

‘We’re scheduled to leave at seven,’ Kylo says. ‘I assume it needs to be earlier?’

‘Now,’ Rey and Leia say together.

 ‘Then I have to wake my friend. He’s next door.’

‘You’re sure he’ll help?’ Rey asks.

‘I’m sure.’

‘It may be too late when you get there,’ Leia says and her voice shakes. ‘Rey, you need to understand that. You need to -’

‘We’ll bring them home,’ she answers. ‘Whatever happens.’

Leia nods. I’ll leave you soon. We need to stay out of sight. Be discrete, Rey. Be brave.’

‘Ben,’ Leia adds, and she is very clearly _making_ herself look at her son, despite the effort it is costing her. ‘I appreciate that you told us about this place. I appreciate that there is something… between you and Rey. I can see that it’s there, as bright as day. I see something in you. It gives me hope. More than I’ve ever dared to believe could still exist.’ She reaches out to him, almost involuntarily, but then steadies her hand so it lies limp at her side. A deep breath.

‘But to be clear, if you hurt her, if you hurt Poe, if there is _any_ part of you that still belongs to the First Order and sees this as the opportunity that you’ve waited for, then I will spend every last resource I have, every last connection I can muster, to have your heart ripped out of your chest. If I die, the last thing I do will be to put the order in place for any ally we have to find you, and to finish you. This is a chance. One chance.’

Her voice is stronger now. He senses her resolve, the absolute truth of what she says. His own resolve rises to meet hers.

‘I don’t hurt people like that any more,’ he says. ‘Things are different.’

‘I’ll never forget the bodies,’ Leia says abruptly. ‘Those kids at the temple when Han and I got there, laid out on slabs. I still dream about the way they looked, lying there, the lightsaber cuts. Everything burnt down, razed.’

He bows his head. He has a perfect memory of so much of that night, so much pain and dread caught up in it. The first killing he had ever done. The way the temple looked as burned, a stain against the inky dark of the sky. Blood on his fingers, how sticky it was. How much of it there was.  Everything burning.

‘Me too,’ he says. ‘It doesn’t change anything. But I dream about them too.’

‘You were a good kid,’ she says. Her eyes are full of tears. ‘You were such a good kid.’

‘I regret it,’ he says. It seems important to say it. ‘It was never enough. I never found what I was looking for there.’

‘Of course not.’ Leia’s tears are slowly streaming down her face.  ‘What the hell did you think you’d find there, you stupid idiot?’

He can’t answer that, doesn’t even try. What was it? Order, stability. A sense of purpose and meaning. The crystalline clarity of the way it feels to live under the domain of kill or be killed. Power, strength. There were so many things he was looking for that he thought he had found, and all of them look so wrong now. They all feel so uncomfortable, like clothes he has outgrown.

‘It’s time,’ Rey says, to spare his discomfort, to break the silence. ‘We need to move.’

Leia nods, still tearful, still shaken. ‘I’ve wired you the coordinates he’s trying to hit, Rey. May the Force be with you.’

‘And you,’ Rey says simply.

His mother nods, and turns to leave. As she does, her hand reaches towards Kylo, and he manages, through whatever the tangle of emotions is that he is experiencing, through the nameless and bottomless guilt and shame of it, to curve his lip into an almost smile, the best he can do.

He reaches his own fingers out towards her, at a distance, and she smiles back.

‘May the Force be with you, Ben,’ she says to him.

‘I think it is,’ he answers. His mother nods her head. Then, almost silently, she is gone, the door closing behind her as soft as a breeze.

He and Rey stand there, just for a moment, lost in thoughts of their own.  Then he too moves, towards the corridor.

‘I’ll speak to Joris alone,’ he says. ‘There are things I need to explain.’ He reflects, and adds, ‘And they think my name is Olos. It might be better if you called me that for now.’

+

 

To Joris’s credit, he opens the door swiftly for a man who is being disturbed in the very early hours of the morning, after what seems to have been a heavy night. Thankfully, his companion is gone. His face is bleary with sleep, but he listens without comment as Kylo explains that they need to leave immediately, and with a passenger, travelling to Bazrahat.

‘Someone you just met?’ he says. ‘I thought I heard a voice next door.’

‘I met her before,’ Kylo says. ‘She’s a Jedi too.’

Joris blinks, surprised. Sleep is clearing from his face. ‘Kriff. How many of you are there in this kriffing hotel?’

‘Just two.’

‘And you need to go with her to Bazrahat? Now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right.’ Joris is pulling on his shirt as he speaks, his trousers already on.  ‘And what about the other passengers? Kriff, Olos. We’ve got so many to drop off. This was just an evening’s respite. It wasn’t supposed to turn into some kind of Jedi reunion.’

‘You can leave us there,’ Kylo says. ‘Get us there, and we’ll do the rest. I don’t want to put anyone in danger.’

‘Only yourself?’

‘Hopefully not.’

‘But it’s a possibility, is it?’ Joris is most definitely awake now. ‘I don’t suppose this urgent Jedi mission of your relates to anything so anodyne as a wish to see the beauty spots of Bazrahat? Pick up a few late-night souvenirs?’

‘No.’

Joris shrugs. He’s now fastening up one of his shoes. ‘I figured as much. And will this mission in any way to connect to how we met, your hangar-jumping days?’

‘In a way,’ Kylo admits.

Joris stands up from fastening his shoes, and gives Kylo a grin. ‘And most importantly of all, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend? Where is she, anyway, this Jedi lady?’

‘You’re agreeing?’

‘Of course.’ Joris looks bewildered. ‘You think I’m going to refuse a man knocking on my door at five in the morning in desperation, after he’s saved my life, most likely more than once? Whatever you have to do, I’ll get you there. I can’t say I understand it, but then, if I did, I’d be a Jedi myself.’

The kindness of people still surprises Kylo. As an adult, he’s known cruelty, indifference, anger, violence. He’s never know anything so complicated as kindness.

‘Rey,’ Kylo says, pushing open the door to his room, where she is still waiting. ‘This is Joris.’

She steps out and gives Joris a nod of greeting.

‘Delighted,’ he says. ‘Any friend of Olos…’

‘Right. Hello.’ Her tone, while not exactly hostile, could also not be construed as overtly friendly either.  

‘You’re needing a lift to the beautiful Bazrahat, I hear?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then,’ Joris says, with an ostentatious swish of his coat, ‘Let’s move to my ship without delay. On the way, you can tell me all about what kind of exciting Jedi thing brought the two of you together...’

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a few loose ends to tie up! (Although I thought that before and then decided to continue the story.) No comment at all on the highly unsubtle hint that Joris's tastes run to attractive brunette men and they're now on their way to... who was that, again? ;)


	31. Warmth and Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhat explicit sex in this one. What can I say, I'm in a romantic mood :)

By the time they get back to the ship, it’s just past 5 in the morning and there is the first, faint glimmer of sunlight rising and the call of birds. It would be beautiful, if they weren’t on their path to almost certain death or misery.

 Joris and Kylo walk fast, Rey in the middle of them, her head concealed in her cloak. She has said little on the way, despite Joris’s cheerful surface questions about how she met Olos and what sort of life she has led, and Kylo realises it is because she is preparing herself.

She isn’t used to fighting in the same way as he is. He might almost have forgotten that, if he hadn’t tried to reach for her feelings, to see her as she is. Combat hasn’t been her life’s work. She has to steel herself, to find strength before she does it; he scarcely remembers a time when he felt like that.

‘Anyone for a coffee?’ Joris says, as they swing into the take-off. He has punched in the coordinates Leia has sent without complaint. It won’t take long to get there – a little less than an hour. They’ll be there before the day’s even really begun.

 Kylo privately wonders what awaits them. He suspects it might be a bloodbath. Or worse, a charred wreckage of a ship. Which would mean long, fruitless hours of searching for the bodies inside, dead or alive and most probably the former. He hopes for Rey’s sake that it isn’t going to be that. He can see it sprawling out, the time, the lifting of metal, the searching underneath. The hopelessness of it.

He remembers the way Luke’s body looked, when he fled the Temple. Partially buried by the ruins, only a foot exposed. He hadn’t known if he had been dead or alive. He had just run and not looked back.

 _I’ll never forget the bodies_ , his mother had said. She and his father must have gone there, Luke must have called them straight away. Perhaps they hadn’t believed it at first. Perhaps they had somehow thought that a rescue was still possible.

That thing he did. It wasn’t the worst thing, but it was the first. He’ll never forget it either, and for as long as his mother’s eyes look at him, she’ll see it too. All of those bodies.

He killed the little kid first. Why? Because he had annoyed him in training. Because they’d had some kriff-shit petty fight once upon a time, as teenage boys and little kids they see too much of are want to do. He’d got on Ben’s nerves, and so Kylo had killed him. So much for being beyond emotions, beyond pettiness, to ascending to a higher life.

 Then he had walked, still barefoot as was custom in the Temple, and had killed another seven people. His feet had been cold on the stones as he walked.

He deserves it. Everything that he feels when his mother looks at him like that. He deserves it a thousand-fold. He knows that.

What he doesn’t deserve is the other thing he sees when she looks at him. Love, forgiveness. Terrible impossibilities.

Rey is tense as the ship takes off. She is checking the chart, their destination time, the route. The communicator on her wrist beeps, just once, and whatever she reads there makes her flinch. Her whole manner is one of irritation and distraction. Joris is to the side, making a coffee, humming cheerfully enough.

 _Want to talk alone?_ Kylo thinks to her. _Or train? We can practice._

She looks at him, direct and steady. It sets his pulse racing. He’s not thinking about, trying not to think about, the way it felt to touch her. When she looks at him directly, it all collapses. It’s the only thing he can think about.

 _Yes_.

‘Hey, Joris,’ he says. ‘I’ve got to talk to Rey alone for a bit.’

‘Ah,’ Joris answers, turning around. ‘I thought as much. I suppose you’ll need to prepare for whatever fight it is that you’re about to jump into?’

‘Who says that’s what we’re going to do?’ Rey asks, not too rudely. She sounds tense rather than unkind. Joris only smiles.

‘My friend,’ he says to her. He takes a breath, as if he has come to a decision of some kind. ‘Let me fill you in. Some time ago, _Olos_ here jumped into my hangar, fresh out of a ship he’d crash-landed at hyper-speed. He had scarcely anything except the clothes on his back and it took him about three days before he seemed to remember how to smile. He looked, if you’ll excuse me,’ here he turns to Kylo with an apologetic smile, ‘Traumatised to kriff. Like he’d been tortured for a decade, something like that. Then we get into a situation in which eventually it turns out he’s a Jedi, and I don’t think I even now know the half of what he really is. I see him fight off a few First Order officers without so much as a scratch to save other people’s lives, and apparently he’s been one himself. I see that he can stop bullets with his hand.’ He pauses, thinking how to put it.

‘Some time later, you enter stage right, as it were, his mysterious lady friend. In the middle of the night in a hotel in the middle of nowhere, looking like you’re about to go to Valhalla. Or to hell, I don’t know. Another Jedi. I heard whispered voices in the night, and if either of you tries to tell me you were the only two of you in that room, I shall eject you into space. I know you weren’t.’ He holds up his hand to ward off comment. ‘Don’t insult me. There was someone else in there with you. It sounded urgent to me. It sounded like a goodbye. I’m not going to ask, I don’t want to know. But let me tell you this: when you put it all together, what I think is, the two of you are about to get into a fight with some pretty nasty people, and whoever it was with you in that room was giving you the debrief on how to do it.’

Joris smiles, very gently. ‘What else would you think in my position?’

‘I…’ Kylo begins to say.

‘Don’t worry,’ Joris answers, interrupting. ‘I’m not asking. I’ve ever asked anything of you that I know you won’t give, Olos. You want to know why I ran that life support?’

He doesn’t wait for an answer.

‘It was your face,’ he says. ‘I saw you, just before you activated the smoke decoy, out there on Ultaraan. You looked like someone who’d been in hell and wasn’t sure whether he’d survived or not. I know that look. I see people whose planets are gone, whose lives aren’t much more than dust. Believe me, I know what it looks like.’

‘It wasn’t exactly like that,’ Kylo says.

‘I think it was.’ Joris’s eyes are so awfully kind. They remind him of someone, of something, but he still can’t find it. The answer that he’s been looking for ever since Joris held out his hand. It’s still eluding him. ‘I think it was exactly like that. Now, anyway.’ He sets himself back in motion, with a cheerful lifting of his shoulders. ‘Since you’ve both refused coffee, and you’re obviously eager to be alone, let’s say I see you back here in half an hour? Just in case there’s anything on the screen you want to look out for.’

Rey hasn’t moved much, but as Joris has been giving his speech she has visibly begun to soften. Some of the tension she is carrying seems to have lifted, and Kylo strongly suspects it’s because she too can sense the kindness of his friend – the only friend he has ever really had, and certainly the only one he has never killed.

‘Thank you,’ she says, her voice quiet but full of feeling.

‘Go on now, my love.’ Joris gives her a warm look that seems to return the feeling in her voice. ‘Do your Jedi things.’

Together, she and Kylo walk out of the bridge and into the quiet corridor beyond.

‘What kind of Jedi things does he think we’ll do, exactly?’ she asks.

Kylo gives a rueful smile. ‘Who knows. He seems to think it involves magic tricks of some kind.’

‘I like him.’

‘Me too.’

‘So you met him jumping into a hangar, huh?’

‘I had to move fast – you heard Hux’s announcement. It was immediately afterwards. I had to get out of there, and Joris’s ship happened to be docked nearest.’

‘I can’t imagine you dodging like that or crashing a ship,’ Rey says. ‘You always seem so composed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look out of place.’

Kylo thinks of the way he feels when she touches him. The way it feels to be close to her in person, to hear her voice. All the times when the guilt of the things he has done, the life he has lived, has become so close to overwhelming. _Composed_ isn’t the word he’d used. Not for any of it.

‘You’re looking wrong,’ he says. ‘If that’s what you see in me.’

She gives him a rather nervous smile. He can see something in her, some nervous energy. He realises, suddenly, that it is desire she is feeling. Absolute desire, rich, complicated.

‘Want to show me what you look like when you’re not composed?’ she says.

‘We should train.’

Rey shrugs her shoulders. They are standing in a quiet alcove now, near to the humming of the engine room beyond. ‘I feel ready, as I’ll ever be. I want to …’ She breaks off, uncertain. ‘I mean, if you want to. I can’t really think about much except…’

He takes a step towards her then. He keeps his tone steady, tries to even his breathing. He doesn’t want to intimidate, to control. He _really_ doesn’t. He's beyond all that. He isn't going to be, has no intention of ever being, that person again for the rest of his life. 

_You looked like you'd spent a decade being tortured._

Well, in one way or another, wasn't that basically right? Hadn't he been, even though he had thought it was of his own choosing? Whatever mistakes he's going to make in the future, going back to that world wont' be one of them.

‘Tell me what you want,’ he says.

She looks at him, full of uncertainty, full of desire. They are standing so close to each other now.

‘Everything.’

_Show me what you want._

_How?_

_Show me the image of what you want._

In his mind, he sees images of the things he knows now that she has been waiting for, ever since she healed him, since she connected with him as he was dying.

She’s been imagining this for weeks. He understands now. She has never done this before. It's only things she's imagined from holovids, from watching. She's never done it before.

He so very much doesn't want to hurt her.

He sees her, there in the dark on Teresthe, her fingers sliding down, underneath her nightshirt, the rounded edge of her finger pressing against herself, moving slow circles. He can see himself, kissing her there, licking against her cunt, slow and controlled. How’s she imagined her finger is his tongue, how it’s made her buck and clench with pleasure, with need, with gratitude, with love. Her being lifted, hard, to a bed by him, thrown against it. Him, his hands against her breasts. His moving inside her, slow and then faster. The precise way she fantasises it. Her imagining of everything he might do, could do. The sheer pleasure of it.

None of it has anything to do with pain. None of it is anything like he’s ever known.

With his hands, he takes her in his arms then. He lifts her up, carries her. She murmurs something, and he kisses her silent, and then kisses her until she is noisy again. He takes her into the engine room where those weeks ago, he repaired the reval engine. It isn’t the right place, but there is no right place. There’s only now, and this time they have.

 _Yes_ , she thinks. He continues kissing her, and then, carefully, as if she is the most precious thing he has ever touched, he does all the things that she has been waiting for.

 

 


	32. Love and War

Once upon a time there was a palace, covered with the whitest snow, far away from the sight of ordinary people. The only way to ascend to this palace was by a long, dangerous path that wound around the side of a steep and dangerous mountain. The way was covered with boulders, sharp with thorny bushes, and treacherous. Only those who had been told the way could know how to step across these dark and fearful paths.

Very few made it there, and of those whose did, fewer still ever came back. It was rumoured that the king who lived in the palace lay asleep, in the splendour of his vanished mountain kingdom. Everything he owned was ripe for the taking, and the world he had built was beautiful, more infinitely wonderous than any that had ever been known. Great halls of gold shone in the sunlight of dawn and glistened the setting of the same light. If only one could get there, the stories said, all one’s dreams would be realised in ways that could only be imagined. The sleeping king’s three children, two princesses and a prince, ran the palace in the brightest of spirits. They sang and played the lute, and in their mountainside gardens grew the sweetest fruits that had ever been known. All there was brilliant, and those who came might choose to stay out their lives in that place, lives full of love. Others might choose to leave, to tell of the things they had seen. None who came would ever forget it.

Most people who heard this story thought only about the dangers and uncertainties of the path, the unlikelihood that anything in the palace would still be standing, if it were to exist at all. They dismissed it as a story for children and forgot about it as they grew older, worrying instead about their own households, their own children and plans.

It was only once in a generation that a child who heard this story made it their mission to set off to the mountain kingdom. The fire of their imagination burned bright enough to overcome the doubts they had, the risks they might have to take. Their belief served as the candle to light the path.

It was they alone who would know the infinite beauty of a kingdom made of sky and gold. Those in whose imagination the fire never burned out.

 

It is this story that Kylo thinks about, as he and Rey lay there, she in his arms. Everything between them is warm, safe, full of the joy of discovery, of being satiated, being adored. His skin is tingling with warmth, and everything feels so contented.

It was an old story, something his mother had taught him from Alderaan legend. It had nothing to do with Jedi at all. It was a story for Ben Solo, the prince of a vanished kingdom of sky and gold, one that he was supposed to remember, to carry within in him until the day that perhaps that world might be reborn.

He’d forgotten about it for so many years. Now, he feels as if he is tasting it for the first time, the sweetness of that possibility. A kingdom woven out of things like this moment.

 

The mood breaks, of course, as it must. Rey is the first to stand up, drawing herself tightly together as she rises and dresses. She doesn’t kiss him, doesn’t linger. Only her hand, light against his chest, stays, her fingers stroking softly. He can feel her thoughts. She is preparing for the battle, thinking of her friend. Worrying about his death, thinking about the future of the Resistance. Their strategies, their hopes. A general in the making, as well as a Jedi.

 _I want to fight now_ , she says to him, and he can still hear the warmth in her voice, even though she tries to sound fierce. She keeps giving him a little half-smile, involuntary, sweet, that makes him feel like she is the first and last thing in the universe. _Fight like you’re in the First Order and you want to kill me._

_I’m not sure if I can do that._

She gives him a cool look. _Will it really be that hard to imagine?_

_No._

_Not in a Force projection. I want to fight now. Come on, Ben. Please._

Kylo sighs. He understands what she needs to do, but perhaps because he doesn’t feel the same urgency, he has little incentive to get locked into a First Order style combat with her, at this time of all times. He stands up, pulls on his clothes.

_We don’t have long._

_Start then_ , she says. She draws her lightsaber and holds it steady, in the starting position that he has shown her.

_Rey -_

She moves her lightsaber, fast and hard, just like he has shown her. His reaction is immediate, his own drawn from the side where he has lain it, the red glimmer of it stark against the blue of her own. He pushes back against her.

He uses the Force, amplifying his strength. She wavers, but holds on. Draws strength of her own.

‘Good,’ he says. He parries with her, light and sharp thrusts that she bats off, returns. They are scarcely fighting.

‘The First Order aren’t Jedi,’ he says, as he twists. ‘They fight to kill, but they don’t fight with purpose. You have to remember that. They follow orders.’ He raises his lightsaber towards her, and swings it down so she is forced to duck. ‘They don’t hate you. They don’t feel anything about it. All they want is to do a clean, efficient job.’

‘Like a droid,’ she says, as she leaps up. She pushes the Force hard towards him and he almost stumbles, has to remember how you fight against a Jedi. He hasn’t done this for a long time in person, trained with someone who works the same way as him. He’d forgotten the way it feels, to have to control two things at once: the fight that you can see, and the fight that you can’t. Only in projections, and as it turns out, those are not quite the same – you can’t die in a projection.

As his uncle so thoughtfully reminded him, not all that long ago.

He swipes towards her, tries to lift her off her feet with the Force.

‘Exactly,’ he says. ‘It’s not noble. It’s not an ancient sacred ritual. If they can shoot you with a blaster, they will. If they can neutralise you, they will. They don’t have rules except to get the job done.’

‘But we do.’

 _We_. That word again.

‘I’m not with the Resistance, Rey,’ he says. They are facing each other off, neither of them giving or losing ground.

‘I know that.’

He swings particularly sharp at her. ‘Do you?’

‘ _Yes_.’ She brings her saber down, almost catching at his arm.

‘But you think I should be.’

‘I think you are already.’ She ducks again as he moves towards her, and he can feel the Force, as she tries to halt him in motion, just as he has taught her to do. He can feel the air thickening around him, the way it tries to stay him. ‘You just don’t want to admit it.’

He shakes off her hold, irritated by it. ‘Helping you once doesn’t mean anything.’

‘No,’ she agrees. ‘But it’s not just once. You saved my life. You could have killed me, and you didn’t. You could have killed all of us, and you didn’t. You’re here, you’re fighting with us. Wouldn’t it be easier to just see that this is who you are?’

‘No,’ he says, and he feels all the strength of purpose, of the Force, rushing into him. ‘I don’t want that life. That isn’t who I am.’

‘It’s who I am,’ she says.

‘No it isn’t.’ Their lightsabers are moving fast now, rapid and sharp, rapier against rapier, each swing faster than the last.  ‘It doesn’t have to be who you are. Being a Jedi isn’t the same as being a Resistance fighter.’

‘But you know what’s happening.’ She is getting angry now, and he can feel the strength of her own purpose rising. ‘You’ve seen all of it. If I don’t fight to stop that, if I don’t try, then what’s the point of being a Jedi anyway?’

‘The point?’ he echoes, and he’s aware that he’s angry too. This isn’t going how it’s supposed to; this isn’t the romantic moment, the pre-battle affirmation that it should be. It’s nothing like a story. ‘The point is to keep things balanced. To be … to try to be honourable. Kind. Clear-sighted. It isn’t necessary to be part of a military.’

‘There’s no other choice,’ she says. ‘I thought you’d changed.’

Between them now is a swirl of darkness, the energy of the Force in their argument. Their lack of shared purpose, the sudden jarring reality of who they are, and how they disagree.

‘I have changed.’ He lets some of his anger into the Force, lets it push her. He knows it’s stronger than she’s ready for, he knows that he is, basically, stronger than she is, better trained, more capable, and that he knows a few nastier tricks. Sure enough, it knocks her back, and she spins on her feet, almost falling, grasping to rebalance.

‘But I haven’t changed into a Resistance warrior. Is that really what you thought? I don’t know who I am. I know I don’t want to kill people. I know I’ve made some really kriffing pathetic mistakes. But I want…’

He lets her stand upright, gives her a second’s advantage. He feels the slap of the Force against his skin, cold, hard, powerful, as she takes her advantage.

 ‘For Kriff’s sake,’ he says. ‘Are we really going to fight like that?’

‘You’re the dark-sider,’ she says, and he can see that she’s really angry now, that something about this fight, about the position they’re in, has let something loose in her, something he really doesn’t want to see. Mad-dog eyes. They’ve all got them in there somewhere, even her. ‘Why don’t you fight how you were trained?’

‘No,’ he says, calmly. He puts all of his energy into seeing with the Force. He can feel her intentions, the way she moves, the way she wants to move. He can see the next blow, and he parries away from it. He grips at her, pulling her taut. He is trying to imprison her, just like he did with Artur, to hold her flat against the air, motionless, caught in amber.

She is struggling free, but her anger is clouding her strength. She’s all scattered energy, furious thought. It’s not helping her, not giving her focus. He’s got the upper-hand. He can feel her intentions. She really wants to fight this one out, to convince him. The idea she has of the two of them, leading the Resistance to glory, being the heroes of the hour. Her fallen comrades avenged, the living Resistance gather around them, a family, strong, secure…

‘No,’ he repeats.

‘Why?’

She is really struggling, and she manages to break one of her arms free, to throw a Force blow at him that slaps against his face, stinging with sharp pain.

‘I just want to try being a person,’ he says, and he realises it is true. ‘I’ve been a Jedi. I’ve been a Dark Sider. A Supreme Leader. I think I just want to be a person now. For a little while.’

Then, with a sudden ease, he releases her and she crumbles to her knees, on the corridor they are in. All around her is still. She is breathing heavily. She looks at him, her eyes taking all of him in.

‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he says. ‘I won’t ever hurt you if I can help it. But I’m not joining the Resistance for you, not becoming another attack dog, not becoming another slave. I’m tired of it.’

‘You’re a Jedi,’ she says, but her tone is weaker now. She hasn’t charged at him with her saber, although she’s keeping it drawn. She’s nearly standing, but he can see her knees are weak, that he’s held her too tight. ‘Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Don’t I? Doesn’t Leia?’

‘Yes,’ he says, gently. He holds out a hand to her, to help her up, and she takes it. This is what he should have done, he knows now. All that time ago, with Niam, that evening. When he had to crawl to the fight, to prove a point for Snoke. He should have kept holding out his hand, to help up his friend, rather than leaving him to die. They could have got out together. There might have been a chance.

 ‘It means something to me,’ he tells her.

‘So why not fight for us?’

‘Let it go, Rey,’ he says. He keeps her hand in his, secure and warm. She doesn’t move to release it, but only sighs. It takes her a few moments to speak. He has the impression she is thinking about things, although what precisely it is that she is lost in, he can’t trace. Something important, something she is just beginning to realise.

‘I’ll go alone,’ she says sadly. ‘Into battle for Poe. You can drop me off on the surface and go off with Joris. It’s obvious the two of you have things you need to do.’

‘I said I’d be there. I will.’

‘No.’ She does withdraw her hand then, and he’s relieved that she’s deactivated her lightsabre. She only looks sad, tired. ‘I thought you’d be coming with me as Leia’s son. As Ben Solo. I thought you were one of us.’

‘I’m your friend,’ he says. ‘More than that. Just because I’m not one of you doesn’t mean I can’t fight with you.’

‘I’ll go alone.’  She turns to look at him then and her brown eyes are full of tears. ‘I really thought you’d come with us. You’re so full of Light. It’s everywhere. But I understand now. I think I do.’

He puts an arm around her, kisses the top of her head, the softness of her hair.

‘I’ll come, just not as one of the Resistance.’

She only shakes her head, doesn’t reply. Together, they walk back towards the bridge, lost in their own thoughts.

 

+  


As they near, the surface of Bazrahat is turning burnt orange in the dawn light. The coordinates Poe gave were for a pine forest, somewhere with ground cover, vast swathes of trees sweeping up into the sky. From the air, it looks beautiful.

There is nothing to see – only the tops of the trees. Kylo is relieved not to see any First Order ships, nothing burning, nothing razed to ash. Whatever has happened here, if there has been a landing, it hasn’t left a scar. That reassures him. They must have arrived before, but wherever they are – assuming they are not dead in space, which is a big assumption – there isn’t an on-going battle. The forest looks, if anything, eerily peaceful.

‘Sure this is it?’ Joris says. Rey nods.

‘I’m sure.’

She has her simple pack slung over her shoulder, her lightsaber readied, her hair braided up tight and firm. Everything in her speaks of readiness. She is breathing in and out Light, just as Kylo Ren has taught her. He can feel the shimmer of it, the purpose it is bringing her.

 _I want to go with you_ , he tells her, trying to reach out with the Force, to connect with her. He finds nothing there. She is, he realises, shutting him out. For the first time since the Throne Room, since he lay dying and called out to her across the galaxy, he can’t reach her – and she is standing right next to him. His only option is to use his voice. He feels bereft.

Whatever has happened between them, the suddenness of it, he doesn’t know what it means. He doesn’t understand what she is thinking.

‘Are you certain you want to go alone?’ he asks her. ‘I think two might be better than one. In these… circumstances.’

Joris blinks at that, but wisely says nothing. He only taps commands into his ship, prepares for their landing.

‘I don’t see any disturbance,’ she says, her voice sounding distant. ‘So maybe one will be enough. In these circumstances.’

+++

They land smoothly and quietly, in a forest clearing that smells of grass and wet earth. The door opens for her, and she steps out into the morning sunlight that ripples through the trees. There is nothing there – no sign of Poe’s ship, whatever it might look like. Nothing but grass and stillness. Dimly, he can feel something in the Force. Some ancient vibration, something harmless and still.

He and Joris are standing there, watching her. Joris is saying nothing, but he is watching Kylo’s face carefully, watching Rey. He seems thoughtful, uncertain.

She on the other hand, steps forward with clear purpose.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ she says, to Joris. She gives him a smile. Then, to Kylo, she gives another, more complicated smile of thanks, of gratitude, of pain, and of what he thinks might, after all, be love. Her face is so expressive of so many things. He smiles back at her, softens his expression. He wants her to know. Everything that he has, that he thinks. He wants her to know all of it now.

‘Don’t follow me, Ben,’ she says, her voice quiet and calm.

With that she turns away from them, moving in a direction that he too can feel, the direction the Force is asking of her, but not perhaps of him. It guides her step, and he follows her with his mind, as she walks, steadily and quietly out of view.

Joris next to him is still thoughtful as the two of them turn back into the ship, close the doors. His expression is creased, with some kind of contemplation and anxiety that Kylo can’t place.

‘Ben?’ he says, as the walk up towards the bridge. ‘Is that your real name?’

Kylo shrugs, resigned. It seems merely pointless, exhausting, to deny it now. ‘Yes. It used to be.’

‘Ben,’ Joris repeats, slowly. ‘But that’s … and your mother had connections with Alderaan? You’re a Jedi? Olos?’

Kylo realises there is nothing he can do. There is no stopping this train of thought that his friend is moving in, there is no undoing it now. He has all the pieces, and there’s only one small connection to make, one final thing to slot into this puzzle.

Together they walk, and the bridge door swings open for them. Joris is clearly taking it in, is almost there...

‘Kriff to fuck,’ he says. He sits down heavily in the captain’s chair, activates the take-off sequence. Looks Kylo up and down, close scrutiny, disbelief. ‘Ben Solo. I knew I knew you. Don't you remember me? It's Palas. You’re my kriffing cousin.’

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun duuuuuuh!


	33. Chapter 33

Kylo blinks very rapidly indeed as he tries to process it He has a vague memory of cousins on his mother’s side, but his childhood seems so far away. He was nine when he left, and in the time he was a child, it was often nomadic, long trips on the Falcon with his father, cutting up the galaxy. Summers with his mother away in resorts, cities. Political travels, moves, tutors, Uncle Luke.

But then.  Long, wide halls on Coruscant, the Alderaani families together – soft-spoken women with their hair in braids, tall and powerful men. His grandparents’ other children gathered and scattered around, what was left of them. Whispers about New Alderaan, things he didn’t understand. Hallways of glass and steel.

The face of a younger boy, red haired and milky white skin, holding onto his mother’s skirt. Shy-looking, eyes averted when he caught Ben looking back at him.

He would never have recognised him, not without prompting. All of that life has been so far away. Now, though, as he looks at Joris – Palas, as it really is  - he can see the resemblance to that little boy, as if he has been stretched out, his features subtly altered yet still somehow the same. Kriff. It really is him.

 ‘Cousin Palas?’ he says, his voice sounding scratchy.

‘Yeah, right.’ Joris grins. ‘Holy kriff alive. Of all the hangars in all the world, you had to jump into mine.’  He switches then to Alderaani, which Kylo hardly remembers, but which he can still put together a few words in.

‘Most noble prince,’ he says. ‘I’m honoured to make your acquaintance. My life is yours.’

‘You be grapefruit,’ Kylo says back, but he isn’t sure the grammar is right.

‘Kriff,’ Palas says, switching back to Basic. ‘You really need to work on your Alderaani. How long’s it been?’

 ‘Twenty years, maybe more. I didn’t… ’  Kylo thinks about how to put it. ‘I left for Jedi training when I was nine, and I didn’t see a lot of Leia after that. I didn’t work on it.’

‘Ben Solo. You were so cool,’ Palas says, laughing. ‘I remember you. Everyone said you knew how to blow stuff up with your mind. I was scared to talk to you – I must’ve been, what, six when you left. I thought you were a superhero.’

‘I really wasn’t.’

Palas is grinning even more widely. ‘This is insane,’ he says. ‘How’s your mother? We never hear a word from her, off with the Resistance doing god knows what. Who was your dad again? Not from Alderaan, right?’

They are still hovering in the space above where they have dropped Rey. Distantly, Kylo can still sense her, her footfall in the forest.

 ‘Han Solo,’ Kylo says, determined that his voice shouldn’t quaver. ‘He was a …he was a pilot.’

‘Ah,’ Palas says. ‘Right. Must be where you get your amazing piloting skills from, huh? Did he teach you to crash land in flames, or did you learn that yourself?’

Kylo actually laughs. He hasn’t laughed at a joke at his expense in a very long time, or for that matter at any joke at all. He is, he thinks abstractedly, _happy_. There is something about this that feels nice, feels right. A cousin.

‘Shut up,’ he says in Alderaani as he laughs, and he’s sure he remembers that one right, because he used it a lot when he was seven.

 ‘Very regal,’ Palas says in Basic, and he is laughing too. ‘You’ll end up a prince some day with that refined turn of phrase.’

He never really gave much thought to family. It was always Leia and Luke, and in a different way there was Anakin Skywalker, although he’s less keen these days to explore that familial bond than he used to be. The idea that Leia had her own relations, even if not by blood, had never struck him as relevant. None of the life of the Alderaan upper class had ever connected with him.

‘Alderaani’s difficult,’ he says.

‘Yeah. But once you learn it for it real…’ Palas is never stopping smiling, Kylo thinks. He’s never, ever going to stop smiling at this rate. ‘Well, then you’re in for a treat.’

‘Like what?’

‘Oh, banquets. Soirees. Parties. Alcohol, man. Beautiful women who want to kiss your feet. Do you remember Yesterana S’dagth?’

‘Sure,’ Kylo says, because the name does bring a vague face to mind, one of the many small, beautifully rendered little girls from his mother’s summer house parties. ‘She came to my birthday party once. Before I left with Uncle Luke.’

‘Well, she’s my…’ Palas switches again to Alderaani. ‘Intended.’

‘Wow,’ Kylo says. ‘Congratulations.’

‘We’re not going to do it,’ Palas says, as if Kylo’s comments were beyond absurd. ‘We already had sex years ago. I’ve had sex with all the Alderaani nobles.’

‘Guess it helps that there’s only about twelve of them.’

Palas just laughs again.

‘They’ll try to eat you alive, you know. If you’re planning to return to decent society, that is? What in kriff’s name happened?’ His expression turns serious. ‘How did the son of Leia Organa end up in the First Order?’

This is the moment at which this happy reunion ends, Kylo thinks, rather bleakly. He considers his options. There is lying, and there is non-committed response. And there is also, of course, the truth.

He’s so tired of lies. Snoke traded in them, false promises, false hopes. He’s just so tired of it. If this is going to be something, he and Palas, their friendship, their being some kind of family, he wants it to be real.

‘I was Kylo Ren,’ he says, and he’s surprised that his own name sounds unfamiliar on his lips now that he’s using it. ‘For a while. Too long. I’m not anymore.’

To his credit, Palas’s jaw doesn’t drop. He doesn’t do or say anything at all – just stares.

‘Kylo Ren?’ he repeats. ‘The Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren?’

 _No, the other one_.

‘Yes.’

‘But you… all those things?’

‘Yes,’ Kylo says, flatly. ‘All of them.’

‘You _ran_ the First Order?’

‘Yes.’

He’s waiting for the anger, for the rejection. In Palas’s face is nothing at all except surprise and bewilderment.

 ‘I don’t understand. Why would Leia’s son join the First Order? Aren’t you a Jedi?’

‘I used to be. I’m trying to be.’

‘Right.’

Now, finally, there is a trace of that anger coming through. Kylo can read on his cousin’s face the way he is processing it. The memories that the name Kylo Ren evokes. The destruction, the people killed, the planets destroyed and damaged beyond repair. The fear and horror he has caused, everywhere across the galaxy.

He can feel Palas pulling away from him, horrified. The smile he has been wearing has dropped slightly. He is thinking fast.

‘I …’ he starts to say.

 But then, in a flash several things happen at once.  The first is that a distress call signal blares out, resounding through the cockpit, making them both jump. The seconds is that a small, dilapidated shuttle is directly overhead of them, careening wildly as if it were about to land, screeching from side to side like a beetle in its death throes, and the third – and perhaps the most essential – is that on the sonar, in the not too far off distance, Kylo can see a group of what are plainly First Order fighters coming after him.

Palas must activate the call, because suddenly there is an unfamiliar man’s voice on the speakers.

‘Hey you,’ he’s saying. ‘I need to land there. Gonna land hard. Get out of the way. Get out. First Order coming in right behind, get out.’

Palas swears, this time in Alderaani, words Kylo doesn’t know. He shakes his head, as if to remove all distractions. Hits several buttons, and the ship is gliding straight up at a distressing diagonal, an unpleasant acrid smoke smell in the air as they move.

 ‘You know that guy?’ Palas says. ‘Seen who’s behind him?’

He nods at the sonar.

‘He’s got about six minutes, if he’s lucky.’

‘Yeah,’ Kylo says, thinking fast too. ‘Can you get him on comm? I don’t know him, but I think I can help him.’

Palas does it without a word. There’s not much time for subtle explanation, Kylo thinks. He hasn’t got the luxury of explaining his identity crisis to this man, Poe. He just has to _decide._ He takes a deep breath. He knows who he is.

‘This is Ben Solo,’ he says over the intercom. ‘You need to fly low. Go as low to the ground as you can. Trail it. Move like you’re driving a solar.’

There is a pause, but only for a brief second.

‘Hello Ben Solo,’ comes the voice back that must be Poe. ‘Heard you were back on our team. Never too late, huh? You know something about those bastards trailing me?’

‘Sure,’ Kylo says. He catches Palas’s look of surprise. _Ben._ He is definitely, for this moment of his life, going to be Ben. ‘They’re hardwired to land smooth. They can’t chase if you go wild down there when they’re on your level. Get them to ground level if you can. Then get away from them fast, as far as you can and keeping low. They won’t be able to follow you until they’ve landed and restarted. It’ll give you time.’

‘Copy,’ Poe says. ‘Watch and learn, kids.’

Palas learns over, to speak on the intercom too. ‘Those bastards are five minutes behind.’

‘Righto,’ Poe says. He doesn’t sound, to Kylo’s mild amusement, particularly anxious about it. If anything, he sounds like he’s about to go for a swim and has just been told the water is slightly warmer than usual. Indifferent, even a little pleased.

Palas pulls their ship up further, out of the line of fire – or so Kylo hopes.

‘You want to stay for this?’ he asks. ‘Can’t imagine the First Order are exactly delighted with you either. We can get away.’

‘Rey’s down there,’ Kylo says, shaking his head. He can feel her still, her energy strong and calm in the forest. Light streaming through her, a focused kind of presence. She has sensed the disturbance up ahead. She knows that it won’t be long until Poe lands, until the First Order are behind him. ‘I think I’ve got to help her. Even if she doesn’t want me to.’

‘Ah,’ Palas says. He gives Kylo a long, searching look.

‘There’s not a lot of time,’ he says. ‘We stay here, they’re going to treat us as hostile unless they’ve got a reason not to. Believe me, I can’t give them a single reason. You say you were Kylo Ren. But you’ve helped me. You’ve saved my life. You’re my cousin. I’m ready to believe you’re on the right side now. Just don’t do any weird magical choking on me and we’re good for now. Let’s focus on getting that guy and your girl out alive, shall we? Save the rest for later?’

‘Magical choking,’ Kylo repeats, absurdly offended. ‘It took seven years to learn how to do that.’

Palas raises his eyebrow. ‘What a waste of time.’

‘Yeah. I should have learned something interesting instead.’

They both just smile. Something painful clenches in Kylo's chest, something complicated and wonderful that he had no idea he had the capacity to feel at all, not any more. By rights, he shouldn't be allowed this. Family. To be forgiven. By rights, he just shouldn't.

And yet, here it is. As solid and clear as daybreak.

Out there somewhere in that forest is Rey. Not speaking to him, not communicating, angry and alone. He can feel her presence, dimly, as she waits in the forest, nearby the clearing. He can feel the blade of her lightsaber, her intentions. Her vulnerability.

 _Rey_ , he thinks, softly, quietly, reaching out to her. There is a frisson of response, her energy. A half-smile, something that feels warm, like she is almost reaching out too. 

 _I'm sorry_ , she thinks. But then the connection cuts, the Force that she is marshalling into her preparations for battle leaving her separated from him. 

He really doesn't like the look of the ships that are coming towards her. And as for that voice, that man who is in command...

‘Right then.’ Palas is back to business. ‘Shields are up. Now I guess we wait until they fire on us, or they do us the courtesy of comming us to ask us our names first.’

Kylo only nods. The Force is with him, he thinks. He hopes it’s with Poe. He hopes it’s with Rey. From their vantage point, to the side and high above the forest, they can see everything unfold as if in slow motion.

They see Poe’s ship, crawling at ground level, spinning around and around, driving into the forest cover but still visible as it occasionally turns upwards. The screech of the First Order ships as they fire and miss, tree after tree burning in their wake as they dive lower and lower. The smoke rising up, Poe’s ship still careening through forest, untouched.

He is still on comms with them and Palas activates the connection.

‘Good work,’ he whistles. ‘You drive like a total maniac.’

A laugh across the channel. ‘You should see me on a good day. I didn’t even have my beauty sleep.’

He is the second most skilful pilot Kylo has ever seen. Perhaps the third, after Chewie. This guy drives like he’s on a practice loop at the fairground, not like he’s got four fighters bombing him. Higher ahead, not diving into the fray, is a command ship. It hovers above, its presence sinister, familiar.

Sure enough, it is this ship that sends a transmission through to them. Palas only grimaces as he accepts.

‘Joris de Pal,’ he says, calmly. ‘Trade license and registration KR-898-08D4, designated supply officer. What’s going on down there? What’s that guy doing?’

‘State your intentions in this area,’ a voice comes back. It is a voice Kylo knows, one that sends a shudder down his spine. ‘This has now been designated a war zone, under Section 78 of the Act of Yathana. All non-military vessels are required to leave.’

‘Ah,’ Palas says. ‘I’m supposed to have a delivery here at these coordinates, but the guy’s gone wild down there. He’s cutting up half the forest. I don’t know I’m supposed to land or what.’

‘All non-military vessels are required to leave.’

‘But what’s going on?’ Palas repeats, plainly stalling for time. All he needs, all they want, is for the fighters to go so low that they land. ‘I have a shipment. How am I meant to deliver it?’

‘You must leave,’ the voice comes back. Kylo doesn’t have to reach very far to find the anger in there. If they aren’t out of here soon, they’ll be a statistic of collateral damage that he knows numbers in the thousands across the galaxy in any average year.

Below, in the forest, Poe is swooping out into the clearing, just visible. He is trailing the ground so close, touching it with the base of his ship, tearing up earth below him.

Kylo reaches out with the Force. He wonders if he can do this. It was never his strength, but…

He imagines Poe walking out of the ship, jumping it, as if he has taken flight. He can almost see it, visualise it. He projects that image around him, as if it were happening. He doesn’t know what Poe looks like, so he has to improvise him – a blond man, tall and wiry, leaping out of a careening shuttle.

 _It’s happening_ , he thinks. He projects the image onto the air, as far as he can into the First Order ships, pushing them low. He wills it to look real. He puts into his will the feelings he has for Rey, for Palas.

 _I’m doing this to keep them safe_ , he thinks. _To give us all time_.

The thought gives him strength. There is Poe, jumping, jumping out –

They swoop low, and he sees that landing sequence is about to activate. They think he’s on the ground now, that they should give chase. It has worked. His finger flicks to active the command channel to Poe.

‘ **Now** ’, he says. And then with a spurt of maniacal energy the little shuttle speeds forward and forward into the trees, racing faster than it could ever have had any right to go, deep into the forest, concealed, flying low, spinning between trees. The four fighters are too slow – they land smoothly, a perfect neat fall, and then pull up, lifting sluggishly into the air, the advantage lost.

It’s all the time Poe has. Wherever he is, he needs to get out now.

Above them, in the air, he can feel rage rising in the command ship. The hot fury of a failed hunt. He knows that one well enough; too well. For a few minutes, their focus is elsewhere. They are searching for the vessel, but he’s gone under the cover of the trees, has driven somewhere they can’t follow. By now, he’ll have abandoned the vessel, he and the others on board. They’ll be running.

‘I need to get down there,’ he says to Palas, who only nods, his smile rather grim.

‘Figured.’

There is a sudden screech of their vessel hitting a nosedive into the forest below. Kylo wouldn’t like to admit it out loud, but he feels, for a brief second, rather queasy. They are practically vertical. Anyone who was still sleeping onboard is awake now.

Then, with an ear-splitting burst of noise, they are pulling upright, and Palas is smoothly landing them, sandwiched between trees, at the edge of what seems to be a ravine. This is an extensive forest – who knows, Kylo thinks, how far they are by foot to Rey, to Poe, to the First Order who will, by now, have disembarked and be on the hunt on foot, or on solar-ped, more likely.

Still. She’s out there, and even if he isn’t with The Resistance, he _knows_ he has to help her. He can see that if he leaves now, her in the middle of forest crawling with First Order soldiers, he’s going to have to deal with the ramifications of that.

‘Thanks,’ he says, lightly to Palas. ‘Nice landing.’

‘Yeah.’ His _cousin_ – kriff, it’s weird – gives him a smile. ‘You going to do that thing where you just disappear and return a few hours later without a scratch on you?’

‘Hope so,’ Kylo says. His lightsaber hilt is smooth in his hand.

‘I could come, you know.’ Now Palas’s face is set. He looks strong. ‘That guy, Poe. He’s pretty outnumbered. And perhaps it’s my romantic side, but I have to say, I tend to be in favour of the outnumbered guy.’

He doesn’t even have to think about it.

‘No. Protect the others,’ he says. ‘Come back for me. Come back here, to this spot, in twelve hours. It’ll be done by then, one way or another. If I’m not here, if we’re not… go. Don’t wait.’

 ‘But…’  Palas’s face is wide with anxiety.

‘Go,’ Kylo repeats. ‘Trust that I’ll be fine.’

‘Ben Solo,’ Palas says, a smile in his voice. ‘The kid who could blow things up with mind.’

‘Yeah, about that…’

‘Don’t shatter my illusions.’ Palas puts out an arm to touch Kylo’s shoulder, gentle, kind. ‘You’d be breaking a six-year old’s heart. I’ll be back here, in 12 hours. I’ve entered the coordinates. By this ravine. Then you and I can catch up properly.’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘Too right,’ Palas says. His face is soft now. ‘I’ll take care of them all.’

‘If…’ Kylo struggles to say it, but he thinks he has to, because one never knows. ‘My mother, Leia. She’s there on Restharna, in the Golden Bird.’

Palas nods, just once. His eyes sparkle. ‘My dad will be thrilled to hear I met her.’

Then, to Kylo’s surprise, he throws him a communication bracelet.

‘It’s a secure channel to the ship. I know the code for it,’ he says. ‘Just in case you need to use it down there. It’ll hold against their frequency scan.’

The bracelet feels soft, even a little warm in his hand. He slips the plastic over his wrist and he feels it connect to his skin, beeping at a low frequency as it maps his vitals.

‘Thank you,’ he says.

‘It was my mother’s,’ Palas says simply. ‘Don’t lose it.’

There’s nothing more to say that isn’t too painful. Kylo fastens his cloak, walks the short distance to the doors, and steps out into the forest. As he leaves the ship, Palas is already gearing for take-off, the engines grinding. He’ll be fired at unless he can get away fast – Kylo’s only hope is that he can evade it, that he is skilful enough, and they are distracted enough by the chase of Poe and what they believe to be the final trappings of the Resistance.

Somehow, he isn’t worried.


	34. Double Lives

Around him, the forest is still and peaceful. The sounds of birds, of rustling trees. Nothing abnormal, nothing to be feared.

Below that, he can sense with Force all the other things that are happening in the forest. The low, steady hum of intentions, of human beings with their own dreams and desires. The First Order are close. He senses their energy, militaristic, impersonal aggression. They are only doing their job. It means nothing exceptional to them if they catch Poe or don’t; it is just their work. He recognises their signature as if it were his own heartbeat. It is the pulse of the thing he has spent the last fifteen years of his life within. That vast machine.

More distant, Rey is there. Purpose, like a steady flowing stream. Her intentions sharp, like a knife. Fear, too. A low frequency of her anxiety, her need to find Poe. She is waiting for him, close to the coordinates she gave, trusting he will return.

He turns to walk towards her, the ground mossy and soft underfoot. He will follow her signature, moving slowly and calmly towards her. He must find her – that much he knows. Whatever is going to happen, he wants to be with her as it does.

The bracelet Joris has given him is close around his wrist, slightly warm, reassuring. The pulse of a connection, of a family.

There is something else. Some vague, distant malice that he knows is above them, in the command ship that is hovering, issuing its orders to the ground troops.

He is certain, _very_ certain, that Hux is up there, waiting for the prisoners to be brought to him. He recognises the other man’s energy, its irritation, its capacity for darkness, its rigidity of purpose and its hatefulness, dressed up in the clothes of correctness and justice.

He knows him so very well. To some extent, he _was_ him.

He can’t believe how long he lived with it.

Closer, stronger, Rey’s signature. She isn’t far now. It can’t be more than a mile, nothing at all, that separates them – but through the dense forest, he has no way of seeing the path. All he can do is trust that he’s moving forward towards her.

 There are noises now in the background. Footsteps in the undergrowth, a snap of a branch. People are converging, he thinks. There’s someone coming behind him – it isn’t Rey, whoever it is.

Cautiously, he ducks low into a space between two trees, shrubby and protected by overgrowth of bushes – it isn’t much shelter, but it’s likely he won’t be seen, not unless the other people are specifically looking for him here – which they won’t be.

He’s sure that the soldiers know _someone_ landed from Palas’s ship. They must have seen its sudden nosedive into the forest, and its sharp return. They must have concluded that it either collected or dropped someone off. He knows that they’ll be vigilant, that Palas will have had to fly better than his best to have made it out unscathed…

The thought chills him. Somewhere up there, his cousin is flying fast, with the First Order in pursuit. To be sure, he is a smuggler. To be sure, he is no novice in these arts. But still. Even experts have their off-days, even experts make mistakes.

Then he sees who it is behind him. Blasters raised, moving in a flank, a bedraggled looking group of people, led by a dark-haired, friendly looking man wearing a jacket that bears the unmistakable symbol of the Resistance. He, the man, radiates a kind of … Kylo can’t quite put his finger on it. Bravado, he supposes. Something that he associates with his father, or his Uncle Luke. A willingness to embrace danger, a strain of headstrongness.

This must, he supposes, be Poe Damaron. Who else can it be?

Neatly, he steps out of the bush, his hands up as if in surrender – not that he needs it. There is a swing and screech of blaster fire in his direction, which he wards off with a flick of his hand. Someone gasps at the display, the Force moving the bullets to the side harmlessly.

‘Ben Solo,’ he says, clearly. ‘Don’t shoot.’

There is a pause, a murmur. All of them are staring at him.

‘Oh man,’ Poe says, and his face splits into a heart-warming, enormous smile. He puts his own hand up, as if in matched surrender. ‘You’re Ben Solo? Thanks for advice about flying low. Not had so much fun since I was learning to pilot. We were absolutely killing it.’

The others, the other seven he is leading, look rather less delighted. Some of them seem distinctly queasy at the memory.

Kylo smiles back, and it comes so easy now.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he says. ‘Glad you got out.’

‘You’re Leia’s son?’ someone else says, a man with a face that somehow Kylo doesn’t trust. ‘I heard you were dead.’

‘As you see,’ Kylo says, palms open. ‘I’m in good health.’

Poe laughs. He moves closer to him, slaps a hand on his shoulder like they’ve been friends their whole life. Is this how people live, he thinks?  Such easy acquaintance, such naturalness. Friendship for nothing, offered like it all comes for free.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asks. ‘Thought you would have stayed skyward?’

‘I’m looking for Rey.’

‘Ah,’ Poe says. He gives Kylo a very frank smile.  ‘Us too.’

‘We wondered about it,’ he adds. Easily, Kylo has fallen in step with him now, walking alongside him, leading the group too. ‘The two of you. The whole… ‘

He wiggles his fingers in the same way that Joris uses to indicate the Force.

‘Force?’ Kylo says, quirking his lip slightly.  

‘Right, yeah. The Force. We heard her talking to herself a lot at nights,’ Poe says. ‘Could never catch the details. But the more we thought about it, the more it seemed like she might be talking  someone we couldn’t see. We thought maybe it was Skywalker, but -’

‘We’ve communicated.’

‘Uh huh,’ Poe says. ‘Well, then we heard that you’d told her about the place on Restharna. Right out of the blue, you were back from the dead... I didn’t even know Leia had a son.’

‘Ah,’ Kylo says. It is clear that it isn’t common knowledge exactly who he is, exactly what he has been doing for all of these years.

His mother must have hidden it, protecting him and perhaps herself. And yet, there must be rumours. There must be people who _know_.

‘I wasn’t dead,’ he says. ‘I was Kylo Ren.’

Poe bursts out laughing, as if this were a great joke.

‘Good one,’ he says.

Kylo doesn’t say anything. He just looks at him, waiting.

‘You’re serious,’ Poe says. His tone is one of disbelief.

He nods.

‘But…’

‘There’s a lot to say about it,’ Kylo says, flatly. ‘I know that. You’ve got the right to say a lot about it. But all you need to know right now is, I’m on your side. I want to find Rey. I want to get all of you out of here. I’m not the same person. As far as the First Order is concerned, I’m a dead man.’

Poe thinks about this. Looks around, at the forest, at the other people. At Kylo himself, a long, considered look.

‘You hurt my friends,’ he says.

‘I hurt a lot of people.’

‘But you’re on our side? You’re with the Resistance?’

‘No,’ Kylo says. ‘I’m not with anyone. But I’d like think I might be able to help the people I care about. Which includes Rey. Which includes Leia.’

‘And does it include anyone in the First Order?’

‘No,’ he says emphatically. ‘No one at all.’

‘Okay, Poe says. ‘Let’s put it this way. We’re in the middle of a forest crawling with our enemies. I’ve got no idea how to get out of this alive, I’m depending on a woman who I can’t find, I’m tired, we’re all tired. We need all the help we can get, and if you’re offering it, I’m not going to refuse it. So I’m reserving judgement on you. If I even believe you that you were Kylo Ren in the first place, that is.’

‘I was.’  Kylo tries to smile, just a little. ‘And I _can_ help you.’

He looks around. The forest, mercifully, is still quiet.

‘It won’t be long before they find you,’ he says. ‘They’ll have sent trackers out if they have any. If not, they’ll be on foot patrol. They’ll be scanning from the air too, looking for any movement they can see through the trees.’

There are more whispers from the group at this. He senses anxiety, exhaustion. The same kind of bone-deep weariness that he felt so often on Yadrin during those long and painful weeks there. In a different way, this group of people, this part of the last vestige of the Resistance, are at the end of their strength.

‘We had to abandon the shuttle,’ Poe says. ‘It’ll be too exposed. We need to find cover here. Wait it out.’

Kylo nods. ‘There’s nothing here,’ he says. ‘Not that I’ve seen. It’s not inhabited.’

‘They think we’re it,’ Poe says. ‘I mean, those bastards. They sent out so many trailing us. I guess they think we were the full Resistance, on board one ship.’

‘Probably,’ Kylo concedes.

‘So that means the rest are safe. Did you see them? At the meeting point?’

He nods.

‘They’re safe.’

‘Then I’ve done my duty,’ Poe says. ‘The rest is just what happens next.’

He and Kylo exchange a look, brief and full of meaning. They keep walking, drawing closer and closer to Rey, to the initial coordinates that she is waiting by.

He reaches out to her.

 _We’re close_ , he thinks. _I’m with Poe and the others. We’re all close. We’re coming._

There is a rush of the Force, strong and calm, as she responds. He feels everything, all at once: her tension, her thoughts, their argument, her need, her regret, doubt, resolve. And then, coming through like a knife, her panic. Someone is there with her, approaching. There is noise.

His heart clenches.

_Rey?_

He feels her moving to fight, to duck. The sound of a blaster, both in the Force and nearby, against his real ears, in their real location.

‘Fuck,’ Poe says, loudly. Kylo draws him back, holding him steady with the Force, standing in front of all them.

‘Stay,’ he says. ‘Let me go first.’

‘Poe,’ someone says. ‘Think about it. He might be working with them. This might just be a way of bringing us to him. You can’t seriously…’

‘Of course I can,’ Poe hisses. ‘He saved our lives.’

‘But he –‘

Kylo shakes his head. Time is running out. Rey is so close, and there are so many of them.

‘Do the right thing,’ he says to Poe, sharply. ‘Protect the rest. Look – ‘ he unfastens his bracelet the bracelet from his wrist and throws it to Poe, who catches it easily, his eyes wide, confused.

‘My friend,’ Kylo says. ‘The guy you heard on the comm channel. He’s coming back to collect me in 12 hours. I can find him without this, but you can’t. Use it. Keep safe. Keep out of sight. Wait for him.’

He gives Poe what he hopes is a communicative, open look.

‘You don’t have to trust me,’ he says. ‘I don’t deserve it. But you can trust him. He will help you. He’ll come back. Wait for him. This is what Rey wanted. She’s here so you could get away.’

Poe looks down at the wristband as if it’s the strangest thing he’s ever seen.

‘We can draw them out,’ Kylo says. ‘Rey and I are very strong. We have a … chance.’

He pushes harder with the Force, putting a barrier between him and the others, holding them in place. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, as he moves. ‘Stay back.’

He thinks about it, looks at Poe directly.

‘I really am sorry,’ he says, and he means it. ‘But if you come, you’re going to get her killed. And yourselves. Stay out of sight, for kriff’s sake.’

He can feel Poe, pushing through the barrier with all his strength, still trying. The murmurs of the others, the dissent, the discussion. The noise of fire, of shots and the scrunch of broken earth.

The thud of Rey as she runs, ducks, parries. There’s no time for anything but this.

 He moves through the trees, blind towards anything except the sound. What’s behind him is gone. All that matters now is this.

He emerges out to where she is, running. Sees her before she sees him.

 She is surrounded by nine, ten. Too many. Her saber is out, shining. He draws his own and the colour of it isn’t the red it used to be, he’s sure of that now. It is red cut through with light, like a shimmering thread through its heart.

 Trees everywhere, things, people, concealed behind them. Fire, coming from all around. He can’t _see_ clearly enough with his eyes, so he does exactly what his uncle taught him, once upon a time, when things were kinder and so much more simple and he knew who he was. He closes his eyes and sees with the Force. He feels where all of them are, their intentions, their movement.

Behind him, Poe and the others, retreating, conflict everywhere in them. Some hiding. Staying low. Others throwing themselves against the barrier, straining to break through.

 He tries to project comfort to them, but he knows that if they come here, they will die. They will slow he and Rey down, they will only distract. Better that they live.

Better that they have a chance. He hopes they take it. He hopes they run now, fast and far. Wait for safety.

Others are coming. The officers have commed their location to their fellows. Others are coming, he is sure of that now – can feel them amassing. They want Rey to be dead. It is a direct order from Hux. Any users of the Force to be killed, especially her.

He moves forward, lightning fast, full of intention. Moves as quickly as he has ever moved in Jedi training, as quickly as his Uncle ever taught him.

Kriff but he misses Luke. All this time, and he didn’t know how much he missed him. The other man’s strength, his kindness.

 _Lend me your strength_ , he thinks, going through the old Jedi mantra. _Master Luke, K’than. Lend me your strength._

There are shots in his direction, shouts, aggressive cries of surprise.

‘Lord Ren,’ someone says, and his tone is that of disbelief. ‘Aren’t you –‘

His lightsaber swings close and the man doesn’t say anything more.  

Rey is in trouble, he thinks. She’s backed up against a close set of trees, fighting off three of them. He uses the Force, pulls them away from her. He can see them stumbling.  
  
_Duck_ , he thinks to her. _I’m going to throw something now._

She just smiles, fractionally, in his direction. And then she ducks, rolling neatly to the side. He throws, as fast has he can, a branch of a nearby tree, the Force sending it spinning forward, careening wildly. It makes contact with one of the soldier’s shoulder and he curses, stumbles. There’s blood and the signature of pain, dark and complicated.

Rey has already rolled back up, standing tall, resuming her fight.

Both of them are working hard now. He doesn’t want to kill any of them, not especially. Overall, he prefers disabling them, knocking them out. Letting them be dealt with by their superiors, to face their own preferred kind of justice.  

Whatever it was he used to enjoy about killing people, he can certainly say he’s not been feeling it lately. These days, he thinks, as he knocks one of them out with a sharp punch – he mostly just wishes he could be someone else, someone away from all of this. To be Ben Solo again.

He and Rey are back to back, lightsabers raised. He remembers their fight in Snoke’s throne room, what feels like a lifetime ago now.

Whatever else has happened, she’s better trained now. The things he’s taught her show through as she moves, her body lithe, her cuts sharp. They work together, moving like water, like a fast flowing river. The Force is with them, and within them, and it feels …

 _Just right_ , she thinks, answering his thought. Her saber cuts, injuring someone. There’s a scream, a push of the Force as Kylo keeps someone low to the ground.

 _Just right_ , he repeats.

More are coming. He can sense them, the endless stream of them that are to come. The First Order never stops. This is one small group; if they get away from them, if they are lucky, there will still be more. As they speak, there are doubtless so many more on the way.

He can keep fighting, but for how long will this hold? One of the officers fires, and it comes so close, within a millimetre of him. It won’t be forever that they can hold this off. The Force is a power, but it isn’t immortality. Neither he nor Rey can hope that this will last forever.

He’s so tired, he thinks. Of the endlessness of it all.

 _Do you trust me_? He asks Rey.

She looks over to him, surprised.

 _Yes_.

 _I want to end this,_ he thinks. _Not fighting like this. Not one at a time. I can use the Force, if you help me. We can make them see something that isn’t there._

_I don’t…_

_Let me_ , he says. _I’ll need your strength._

She nods.

He puts all his focus into it, draws on hers. He feels her acquiescence to him, as he takes what she has, adds it to his own. He projects both of them, as if they are running away from their own bodies. Their Force projections are so solid, so very much as if they were real. He imagines the two of them, looking like they are fleeing. He can feel himself, in the projection, running forward. There are two of him here; two of Rey.

They are running. The First Order officers are distracted. There are shots fired. In the Force projection, he and Rey fall, as if hit. Imagining this, getting them to look away from the real him and Rey, is costing Ben an awful lot of effort – more than he has, more than anyone should have.

No wonder it killed Luke, he thought. Projecting like this, making so many people believe it. It _hurts_.

But on the other hand, Luke didn’t have Rey. He was alone. And whatever he is, whatever this life of his is going to be, it isn’t ever going to be alone. Not again, not ever.

They hold the projection. Rey too is struggling with the effort of it. So many people, so many minds to control, to make believe…

The two of them run, moving to the side, away, into the forest – still holding the projection all the while. Kylo reaches for her hand and she offers it. They hold hands, moving away – their dead bodies lying on the forest floor, being lifted by First Order hands, being inspected.

Kylo imagines the precise way in which his heart isn’t beating. The precise way it would feel to touch his body, the weight of it as it’s lifted.  Rey’s slenderness. The way her hair would hang limp as she is lifted. The glassy look of her eyes.

 _Keep going_ , he says to Rey, as they continue running. She nods, but her meditation is weaker than his, less controlled. She’s so full of tension, of the need to really _be there_ , to fight. She has to suspend it, or else all of this is going to fall down – she can’t split herself like this.

 _Let go_ , he says. _This is exactly what’s meant to happen_.

There are shouts from the soldiers, those who are handling their bodies. He hears a command channel, Hux’s voice.

‘Bring them on board,’ he says. ‘and look for the others.’

 _Time to go,_ Kylo says. He knows how to do this now. This is what Uncle Luke had left to teach, the final thing he had to give to his nephew.

He understand now the nature of sacrifice. He thinks he understand what it means to be a Jedi. After all these years, he thinks he finally understands.

He and Rey duck down, into a kind of hole, something he is sure they have been led to through the Force. He closes his eyes, encourages her to do the same, lets both of them slip into the meditation – into the projection with the Force, the imagining of this. Into their dead bodies.

It killed Luke, to do this. He knows it might kill them too. He also knows that there was only ever one way to get back on board Hux’s command ship, and that was dead. Hux would never have taken them as prisoners, would never have chosen anything other than to kill them on the ground.

The Force is with them, rippling around them.

 _Hold on_ , he thinks to Rey. _Keep imagining it._

He can feel her, next to him, the warmth of her body. The reality of the place they are. He lets it go. All he is now, all she is now, is dead.

Hands carrying them, rough soldier hands. No dignity in this, no ceremony. They are heaved over a shoulder, Rey with one man, he carried by two. Their bodies. He keeps there.

Kylo Ren is dead, he thinks. Triply dead to the First Order.  As dead as anyone every could be. Rey is dead too.

The two last Jedi, as dead as stone.

They are carried, and he feels the thud of the door to the shuttle as it opens for them. The way their bodies are dumped in the corridor, the men not even bothered to cover it, to place it somewhere. Just dumped like a hulk of meat.

Hux will want to see them. They will want the picture of the bodies, to display throughout the galaxy. It will be excellent public relations.

‘Gives you the kriffing creeps,’ one of the soldiers says. ‘Those two. The stuff they could do.’

‘Tried to run though,’ another says. ‘In the end they were just cowards.’

‘Got ‘em good,’ the first says. ‘Clean hit to the head.’

They seem self-satisfied, smug.

‘Let’s get a drink,’ the other says. ‘Let the rest of them do the dog hunt down there. We’re up to the boss with these two.’

There is a murmur of agreement, and the sound of footsteps disappearing down the corridor.

 _We don’t have long_ , Kylo thinks to Rey. _It’ll be a short journey up to the command ship._

 _Never been dead before_ , she thinks. _It’s difficult._

He smiles at her, willing her to keep going. It is difficult. It’s costing him too – energy, strength. The Force in balance, and both of them are taking it to its limit, creating this illusion. It’s nothing at all like Force projecting to each other.

 _I’m sorry_ , she thinks, and her voice is urgent. _For before. The things I said… I didn’t…_  she tries to clear her thoughts, but he can see that it’s hard for her to talk to him like this, hard to hold the illusion and the conversation simultaneously.

 _This is enough_ , she thinks finally.

Somewhere in the forest, in their hiding space, he feels her hand squeeze his.

 _It is enough_ , he thinks to himself, or to her – he doesn’t know and it doesn’t matter. What he’s doing now, this is saving the others. It’s distracting Hux and the soldiers. It's not really about heroics, about the battle itself. It's just about giving other people a chance. Not even guaranteeing their survival, not being their superhero. Just a chance. That's all he can do, and all he can give. 

_A Jedi isn’t a weapon. A Jedi is a shield._

Luke had taught him that, but until now, he realises that he's never understood the first thing about it. 


	35. Chapter 35

Mostly, they stay dead.

There’s no one there with them in the corridor – the men who are bringing them up to the command ship, clearly, have no interest in sitting with the remains of two Jedi.

So it’s only mostly that they stay dead.

He moves his hand towards her, and she takes it. In their projection, everything still feels as if they are embodied. More or less, anyway. It’s easier when they are alone. More like it was with the Force. He isn’t so conscious of holding it all together with such sheer effort that it might at any moment collapse. When he is alone with her, it feels more like just being himself.

_You okay?_

She nods, almost imperceptible.

_I didn’t know I could do this. With the Force. We never trained to do this…_

He knows. He never trained to do it either – not like this.

_It’s what Luke did. He was never really there. It was all illusion. When we fought, he and I. It wasn’t real. He was still on the island._

_I didn’t know_ , she says. _Is that what it was? I only knew that he died…_

_He kept it up for a long time. He was very strong._

It doesn’t hurt as much as it used to, admitting that.

 _You miss him_ , Rey says.

 _I think so_.

She smiles, just slightly. _That’s new?_

_Everything’s new._

_So…_ she pauses, awkward. _Am I still supposed to call you Kylo Ren? I hear it’s not how you’re introducing yourself these days._

 _No_ , he admits. _I don’t think I’m Kylo Ren. Not as such._

_So then?_

_Ben Solo is okay_ , he says. _For now._

He doesn’t want to linger on it, to make too much of it. It isn’t a promise, nor a future. It’s just a name.

Still, her heart rate speeds up anyway, as if something is clenching in her. He feels as well as sees her smile, bright and alive with feeling.

 _Ben Solo_ , she repeats. _Okay._

She turns to face him, in the projection, and her eyes are so very brown, so very warm.

 _Ben_ , she says, and his heart clenches in return.

Hearing his name, his real name, or at least the first one he ever had, on her lips feels as if someone is offering him a kind of gift that he hadn’t known existed, something rich and complicatedly precious, and so full of Light. All it is, is the way it feels to hear his name on her lips.

_You think Poe will make it?_

He thinks about this. He doesn’t want to lie to her, but nor does he want to cause her pain or distress. They need their full energy here, and any loss of focus would be hazardous. He doesn’t honestly know if Poe and the others will make it. They are in the forest, alone and vulnerable. They will have to run, to fight, and to hide. They won’t have long.

_I don’t know. He has a better chance now that we’re here. I hope they’ll be distracted by this, by us._

Rey nods.

_That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?_

_Yes_ , he says, simply. _That’s why we’re here._

There is the sound of footsteps, close by. The screeching noise that foretells their arrival to Hux’s command ship.

 _Time to be dead_ , Kylo says.

Her eyes return to glass, her body to nothing but bone and skin. So do his own. On both of their skin are the marks where the blaster fire hit them, red and violent. He takes especial care to amplify its look, to make sure it looks painful. As if he has suffered.

He knows how the dark side works, after all. A victim who looks like they’ve suffered is less likely to be treated with scrutiny, to be inspected, or worse to be mutilated post-mortem.

Dead is dead, but suffered and dead is better. What was it Snoke used to say?

_The mark of greatness is that which you leave on those you meet. If you will your greatness to be that of Darkness, the mark which you leave must be equally so._

Which was a fancy way of saying, make sure it scars.

Make sure it always fucking scars. As long as he is scarred, he is in with a chance of being presumed to be adequately dead.

+

They are carried roughly on board the command vessel, hulked around as if they are nothing so much as flesh and bone, butchery meat for sale. The men carrying Kylo grunt at the effort. He lets them lift him. He is limp, unbothered. One of the men gives him a particularly sharp slap as he lifts him, clearly with some pent-up resentment or feeling.

He lets him.

They are lain down on two slabs in what Kylo knows is the med-bay. This is the same ship that he had once commanded from. Clearly Hux has taken over in a direct form of succession: the same throne room for the same leader.

The med-bay. A rather euphemistic term for the place that, in fact, is a morgue as much as a centre of healing. He knows it here. It is the place where he patched himself up, time and time again – always alone, always angry, always frightened.

He used to be so frightened, he thinks. Deep down, the essence of the Dark Side was always just fear – of being deposed, of being found out, of being inadequate, of being Ben Solo, of not being enough to survive this place.

Once upon a time, he had sat in this med-bay with a broken shoulder, a nasty hit from a training droid, and in that moment, blood dripping steadily out and down onto the very slab he is currently lying on, and he had stared up at the ceiling, in the darkness of the night, and had had a single, solitary thought:

_Why am I here?_

The violence of the thought had surprised him, its tenor too radical for him to do anything about. He had ignored it, pushed it away. It was an unwelcome insight. He had let the droids fix his shoulder, ignored it, moved away from it.

Now it seems as if the whole of his life here had been the act of ignoring that one insistent question – _why am I here?  
_  
It had been a pretty damn miserable time as the Supreme Leader. That much he could say. That much, if nothing else, was obvious because he was finding that he preferred _being dead_ but not being Kylo Ren to anything he’d ever felt as being Kylo Ren and alive.

_Ben, don’t you think it’s time to grow up? What can all this give you that you didn’t already have anyway?_

Once upon a time, in some dream or another, his uncle had said that to him, about the Dark Side.

What indeed could it ever have given him? He has so much power. He could drown in the stuff, if he wanted to. He has status. He is a prince, the son of a leader, the son of a General famous across the galaxy and his father was only marginally less famous than that.  He has everything he could ever have needed, and everything he ever could have got from this tawdry place was already his.

It’s all so clear now.

 _I’ve been really stupid_ , he thinks to himself. _Really kriffing stupid._

No one answers him, of course. Except, perhaps, a vague tremor of the force, some flickering, hopeful light that – if only he had known how to look for it – had been with him all the time after all.

He doesn’t have a plan. There’s no moment at which he wants to do whatever it is that he’s planning to do here, no pre-ordained sense of it.

He supposes the Force will just show him whatever he needs. He’s okay with that. He’s been no-one, he’s been someone, and he’s been dead, and he’s been alive. In the end, the Force has had a hand in all of it.

They – their bodies – are left under guard by two First Order soldiers, clearly on Hux’s orders – his inherent distrust of Jedi, even dead ones, is in all honesty a point towards his being a saner leader than Kylo Ren ever was. The two soldiers look relatively low-rank and nervous at their job. They keep eyeing the bodies as if they might bite.

Still, Kylo waits until there are just those two guards, the other men having left on other orders, and then – with a gesture to Rey, he sits up from the morgue’s slab, and stretches his arms out in front of him, as relaxed and calm as a cat at rest.

‘Hey,’ he says to the two soliders. Rey is up, next to him, on her feet immediately. ‘Thanks for the trip to the medbay. I’m feeling much better.’

There is a cry from one of the men, something horrified and vulnerable, as if a demon has unleashed itself in front of his eyes. He reaches instinctively for his communicator, but Kylo bats it away.

‘Don’t do that,’ he says. It’s _hard_ , the hardest thing he’s ever done, to use the Force while in a Force projection like this, to be able to inhabit so many different realities at once, to manipulate within manipulation.

He manages it, though. Rey is with him. Luke is with him. In some way, in this moment, he can feel his uncle’s spirit more than ever. Maybe even his father is with him. Ben Kenobi. All of them, all of the Force, all of the Light. It runs through him like light moves through a diamond, shifting, refracting, but always there.

The comms devices fall to the floor. Rey has already moved towards the two men, has pinned them with her lightsaber – at least, she has it pressed nearly against them, almost touching. Kylo joins her, uses his own. They are holding them at saberpoint.

‘No noise,’ he says to them. ‘No warnings, no signals. Get down on your knees now.’

‘Lord Ren…’one of them says. ‘Please, I… we had to… I have always been faithful.’

Rey makes a little tsh sound at that. Kylo smiles rather wanly.

‘I haven’t,’ he says.  ‘You’re going to stay down on the ground now. Rey, pick up their communicators.’

She does it, careful, calm.

‘Good,’ he says. ‘How long until Hux is here?’

‘Not… not long,’ the other man says. ‘He’s coming as a priority. He’ll be on his way.’

‘Good,’ Kylo repeats. ‘So…’ He steadies his features into what he hopes conveys his being simultaneously extremely dangerous and extremely not the Supreme Leader. ‘You know me. You tell me – what do I do to people who don’t obey?’

‘You… you choke,’ the soldier says.

‘I do it exactly like this,’ he says, and he raises his hand.

 _Magical choking_ , that’s what Palas called it. He almost smiles at the thought of Snoke having called it that in training.

The man wheezes, clutching at his throat. Next to him, he can feel Rey’s displeasure, discomfort. He doesn’t like it much himself. It feels dark, unpleasant, pointlessly nasty. It’s aberrative. But, on the other hand, it _works_. Here, he has to still be – at least in part – Kylo Ren. This is the last time he’ll ever perform it. He might as well go with it.

He releases the man from his hold, and he gasps for air.

‘Don’t struggle,’ he says, calmly. ‘Don’t make me go to the trouble of killing you here. We’re going to walk together now. You two in front. Walk towards the cleaning supplies room next door. Go inside. Now.’

He puts some Force command into his voice, but he needn’t have bothered. They’re doing it already. They were afraid of him the moment they saw him. That’s the power of having been who he was, he supposes. The way people look at him like he might be about to murder their children for sport.

He never did like it all that much.

Their odd convey moves down the corridor, the two soldiers flanked by Kylo and Rey. It is quiet, as he hoped it would be – but they won’t have long. The room is only next door, and it’s always unlocked. He knows that from his time here. People in the First Order don’t steal things from supply rooms. If they did, they’d be dead. It’s mostly just towels, bandages, white spirit for the floor. Things that a medbay might need.

Inside, he orders them to shut the door. It's a small space. 

He squares them up. Looks them right in the eye. There is so much fear. They think they will die here. So very much fear, everywhere. The same thing that kept the people enslaved on Yadrin, the same thing that, in a different way, kept him enslaved here for all those years. Everything here is so pathetically fearful.

‘Stay here,’ he says calmly. ‘I’ll lock the door securely. If they find you, they’ll kill you for having let us out. Your best chance is to stay in here and wait it out.’

The two men blink, shock across their features.

Rey too is full of surprise.

‘Just leave,’ Kylo says. ‘If you ever get the chance. Get out. Do something different.’

'But -'

'I'm done,' he says. 'I don't feel like killing you. Just stay here, wait it out. My advice then is to go out there and try to live your life. Whatever it may be.'  
  


With that, he walks straight out of the supply room, exactly as he is, with Rey following him. Outside, he does as he has promised and locks the door, the force sealing it firmly shut. They’ll be able, eventually, to break out – but not for a while. It'll hold.

‘Ben…’ Rey says, and she uses her actual voice, rather than in his mind.

'Hmm?'

'I understand,' she says. 'I think I understand.'

And then, without any further comment, she leans towards him and kisses him, her lips full and warm.

He kisses her back, just briefly, and as they kiss, he realises he’s smiling too.

‘I’ll need a communicator,’ he says, and she passes one over.

Into it, he types the following urgent message to command:

‘Prisoners escaped from medbay, currently on ship. Location unknown. In pursuit.’

That will liven Hux up, he expects.

‘Want me to give you a tour?’ he asks Rey, his voice light. ‘I used to be the head of this ship.’

There is a siren now, one he knows.

_Intruder alert, intruder alert._

‘That’s for us,’ he adds. He raises his lightsaber, and she raises her own.

The communicator is going wild with messages, contact relays, requests for location. He lets them all run on, dropping the communicator on the floor where they are.

Then, he takes her hand and pulls her away, down the corridor, looping around the path of the ship that he has been on and off for fifteen years.  Halfway, he uses the other communicator.

Target in sight, he types. Sends it as he throws it, swiftly, down the engine shaft. It’ll waste a few seconds as they pinpoint location. Then takes Rey, neatly, up the set of stairs he knows to lead to the throne room and his own chambers, as they once were.

The place isn’t crawling with officers, thankfully. He knows the quietest routes, can make an unusual, forking path to their destination. Hubris on Hux’s part to think he didn’t need to change ships, he supposes. Hubris to think that poisoning him would be the end of it.

Their lightsabers are activated and ready. He is going to walk with her, head held high, no hiding, direct to the command centre of the First Order.


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead!!

Once upon a time, Kylo Ren – newly born not more than two months before - is learning how to torture someone.

Hux has installed him in the throne room, so that he can watch his apprentice at work. He is inside Kylo’s head, encouraging, directing. Controlling.

The person is just some grunt, some First Order soldier they’ve plucked out of the ranks. No one important. He’s young, with a mess of brown curly hair underneath his helmet. He looks none too bright, but Kylo is not trying, he has to admit, to look for any spark of fellow feeling in this boy. It’s easier to see him as someone dumb and expendable than to see him a human being.  
  
He’s standing over him. The kid is down on the ground underneath him, still conscious, still garbling his way through the speech he can’t make, because Kylo Ren has broken his jaw and his tongue.

Snoke’s teaching him how to draw out pain, how to prolong it. Not merely how to kill someone quickly and neatly, but how to appreciate the art of a good kill.

He holds the boy’s throat, tight but not yet choking. He can’t choke people yet – it’s too difficult. He can just apply pressure, something uncomfortable but not fatal for them. He’s learning.

With his lightsaber, he’s tracing a line on the boy’s skin. He can hear the noise it makes as it cauterises. It cuts through the fabric of his cheap uniform, right to the skin. The tracing is fairy-light, just grazing at him, just burning him slowly. The boy isn’t screaming, but that’s because he can’t. He only makes guttural, odd noises like an animal. They sound like a amphibian, something Kylo remembers from visiting the animal sellers on Coruscant with his father, the gurgling of toads or frogs.

He doesn’t want to break the skin, to get to the organs or anything essential. He could kill this kid in a second, in less than a second. Push the lightsaber a little deeper, just a fraction, and let it cut through. The carotenoid artery would do it. The jugular. There are a great many ways to end someone’s life efficiently.

It’s not about that, though. He already knows he can kill people.

This is about _art_.

He senses the boy’s distress. Of course he does. He isn’t incapable of human feeling, nor is he  totally impervious to it. He feels it the same way he’d feel a gunshot wound, or a blow to the head. It is the kind of pain that it is impossible not to feel.

. The boy is radiating pain, fear, vulnerability. He’s dying, he’s seriously injured, and he’s in a throne room with two of the strongest and most unkind beings in the galaxy who want to use him as a test dummy. Of course he’s distressed.

That’s not the question. The matter at hand is: does Kylo Ren care about that? And the answer of course, is no. He has no option to care about such matters.

It’s still not very pleasant. Kylo Ren has to admit he is finding any of this tremendously ennobling. He’s not disgusted or squeamish. Blood, suffering, burning, they all mean nothing to him. But he has to admit it does leave a rather odd blank feeling in him, looking down at this kid. Something …

Something he doesn’t know. Nothing. An absence of a feeling, a memory of one. He doesn’t think he feels quite all right.

There’s no way out.

He does it all rote. Snoke moves his hands, moves his thoughts. He lets him. The sabre continues to graze, right over the boy’s heart. It would be so easy to end this. It would be a mercy. Except, of course, that’s not what this is.

The boy is thinking about his home planet, about his … what is that? Kylo extracts the thought, idly, with no real or sincere interest in it. A sister.

He’s thinking about his older sister.

Ah, she must have been his protector, once upon a time.

 _They always think help will come_ , Snoke says, in his head. He’s watching the thought too; he’s within Kylo Ren, he’s a part of every aspect of this experience. His hand is holding the lightsabre, he is the thought, he is the Force. He is the boy and he is Ren.

_Even now, he believes like a child. He thinks she will come to save him._

There is a laugh in Snoke’s voice.

_Even now, you think someone will come to save you._

Kylo blinks. He doesn’t need saving. He’s been reborn as Kylo Ren, as a knight of the Darkness, of an apprentice to greatness and the heir to Lord Vader.

 _Break his hopes_ , Snoke says. _A far worthier course than the mere breaking of bone and skin. Hope is more sinuous. It holds long after other things stop. Break it._

Kylo Ren doesn’t know how to do that, but it doesn’t matter, because Snoke is the one doing all of this. He’s just the host body.

An image comes to the boy’s mind, unbidden. The same sister, the face from his memory. A feeling of her warmth, the smell of her hair. She looks big and strong, to a little brother.

And then, the memory twists and reshapes. She crosses her arms. Looks down at him.

‘You deserve it,’ she says. ‘I can’t help you. I’ve got other people to think about now.’

Then, ugly and terrible, she laughs a mean little snort. She turns her back to him and walks away.

 _No one’s coming_ , Snoke says.

There’s a new feeling in the boy. Something different to all the other pain. Something worse, more final. It isn’t just physical, nor is it just fear. It’s as if he’s suddenly, horrifically, aware of his surroundings in a new way.  He realises how very alone he is for the first time. There isn’t any hope.

Kylo just lets it all unfold, keeps his hand steady on the saber. He doesn’t have choices. He had them, and he took the wrong one, and now he’s here.

They don’t kill him for another three hours.

Then, after it’s over, after he’s finally dead, Kylo Ren is excused from the throne room. Snoke is pleased with him; has enjoyed the practice. It seems to have put him in a light mood.

So he gets out of there, and he walks down the long, silent corridor towards his quarters. No one bothers him; who would? Since he became Kylo Ren, hardly anyone speaks to him. He is feared here. He is Snoke’s protégé. People don’t kill the protégés of dangerous masters whom they can’t defeat, as a rule. They don’t get close to them, they don’t invite them into their world. He represents danger. He represents fear.

He’s an 18 year old who tortures people. He’s Ben Solo. He’s in training to become someone who uses his lightsabre to burn people’s skin on their flesh.   

He knows his hand is shaking. He can’t stop thinking about the way that he looked up at him. Those noises he had made.

Intellectually, he knew what the Dark Side was when he started all of this, but he’d rather thought it was more – what then? Mystical? Noble? A spiritual path, of sorts. He thought it would be all Sith swordplay and clandestine knowledge of mythical training routines and being The Heir to Lord Vader, learning and unleashing all sorts of Force manipulations, all sorts of powers and strengths that he knows he has inside of him. Harnessing them to become the man he was meant to be.

Or something. Is this the man he was meant to be? He can’t even stop his hand shaking.

He hadn’t really thought that he’d be physically torturing someone in such a real and non-mystical way. Before he killed those people at the temple, he’d never even seen a dead body. He’d never hurt someone in this way, with such specific interest in the act of hurting for its own sake.

It’s ugly. It’s simplistic, crude violence. Unpleasant, pointless. He isn’t really very interested in pain, not _in itself_. Not in the way Snoke seems to be, anyway.

There’s no way out. He’s going to be the man he was meant to be. In time, these feelings will pass. That’s what Snoke says. They’re only remnants of an old life, ruined pieces of stone and mortar where once stood a house. Nothing of consequence. Upon those ruins, a greater house will be built. Snoke says that as well.

He lets the fresher run for more than hour, the water raining down on him, set up so that it’s so strong it almost hurts. He slumps against the wall, crouching low, letting the water just run and run. It’s possible he’s crying, and it’s possible it’s just the water. He doesn’t know. What’s the point in knowing?

 It’s not helping. His hand is still shaking. He still feels that awful, all-consuming blankness. It’s like he’s not himself. He _isn’t_ himself. He’s utterly in the service of Snoke, has been consumed by the other man so entirely as to have very little left of himself.

He deserves it, though. And there is really no one who loves him enough to come to help.

 

+

 

Now,  he pushes open the door to that same throne room. They have made it here. There was a fight on the stairs, a nasty scrape with a couple of officers – nothing he and Rey couldn’t handle. Together, they are almost unstoppable. They fight like they have been made as one being split into two parts. Fighting is their reunion.

The room looks exactly as it always did, other than that Hux has installed an extra console, presumably something to monitor a strategic element of which Kylo Ren had no need; something to compensate for Hux’s lack of skill with the Force.  The console occasionally bleeps, emitting a sharp single tone noise.

The room is empty. Vast, sprawling, and empty. Dark, dangerous. They haven’t much time – guards will be here soon, someone will come. Fitting that he and Rey should fight here, if anywhere. The door closes behind them, but he doesn’t lock it.  They’re not really here anywhere. They have nothing to fear, as such.

Only their being found in the forest. Only their friends being killed. Only Palas not having escaped and he and all the other escapees being killed or tortured, only Leia having been found on Restharna, only Poe not having got out, not having run fast enough.

No, nothing to fear at all.

Some of the worst things happened here in this throne, he thinks. Only one of the best, and even that was a limited quality; his killing Snoke, in the end, was the best decision he could have made. It was just not for the reasons he thought it was at the time.

‘I don’t like this place,’ Rey says. Her sabre is raised.

He has to admit, neither does he. He thinks of the time he has spent here. All of it lost, and most of it foul.

He thinks about all of it. The torture, the being tortured. The times he has been flung to floor, broken his bones. The times he has flung someone else to the floor. The way he came and knelt on the ground after he’d killed Han Solo and how he thought that he’d feel something more than the usual blankness, some affirmation of his new self. All he felt was the same, except with a bowcaster wound added to it.

How it felt to be Kylo Ren. 

How it feels to not be him now.

‘It’s not that great,’ he agrees, keeping his tone light. He doesn’t want to sink into despondency. There’s no time. Regret is a luxury they don’t have. All those things he did, he just has to find a way to live with them.

 ‘Terrible view for a throne room too,’ he adds, gesturing to one of the windows that is blacked out. ‘Maybe we should blow it up. At least then it’d have a proper view of the stars’

Rey gives him a look.

‘Since when did you have a sense of humour?’

He grins at her. ‘A while.’

‘You sound like …’ her voice trails off, sudden, abrupt. He can read her thoughts like stars in the night sky over an abandoned planet.

‘My father.’

She nods.

‘I think I am like him,’ he says. ‘In some ways. Not in others.’

It’s the strangest thing to admit that in his former throne room. The thing he’s been running from his whole life.

It’s okay, he thinks. _In some ways but not in others_. That’s how he is Kylo Ren, and it’s how he is Ben Solo.

Rey smiles, bright and full of warmth for him, although he can feel how fractured her energy is. It’s costing a lot to be here. They have to fight. They have to find Hux, to try to end this. He still doesn’t really know what his plan is.

 He can kill Hux, he supposes. He can _definitely_ kill anyone he chooses. He could torture Hux, could mutilate him, maim him, do any of the things he’s learned how to do.

And then what?

There’ll always be another Hux. There’s always the next tyrant waiting, after the last tyrant falls. He knows something about that. The First Order machinery won’t disintegrate because one leader dies. The next one rises, takes his place.

He looks around. He’s not surprised it’s empty; Hux will be out looking for them. He won’t presume they’d come here, into the inner sanctum. Leaders never expect their area to be breached. They fight outside of it.

Still, there’s always a solution, he thinks. To every problem, a solution. What was it that Leia liked to say?

_If you think it’s hopeless, it’s only because you’ve looked for hope in the wrong place or in the wrong way._

The console to the side of the throne room, he remembers, broadcasts pretty well across the ship. With a neat step, he moves towards it and gears it into action. It doesn’t need a code – the understanding is, of course, that as the Supreme Leader alone commands this room, no code would ever be necessary.

But why stop at the ship, he thinks? Hux’s message of his overtaking Kylo Ren was broadcast to everyone, across the whole First Order via their com bracelets. There must be a way to parse into that. He never knew it, would never have commanded like that, so openly; but that’s not to say it isn’t there.

Sure enough, he finds it. It’s straightforward; just another command.

‘This is Lord Kylo Ren,’ he says, keeping his voice cold and clipped, stripped back of any humour or warmth. He puts all the coldness he has ever known into it. He can feel the Dark, vibrating in him, just waiting for its chance to take him over. Its tendrils spread very deep and very wide in this place and they have left even deeper grooves in him, places that long to be filled, long to be made anew in that dark form he once thought was his birth right. He lets it into him, lets it permeate through his voice.

 ‘I am Supreme Leader of this vessel and of the First Order. Supreme Leader Hux is dead, at my hand. Effective as now, I command you.’

He takes a small, calm breath. Thinks about all the things that are different.

‘Hux had greatly over-represented our strengths,’ he continues. ‘He has lead us into peril. He has been weak. We are grievously weakened. Effective as of this message, withdraw to your base immediately. Repeat, withdraw to your base immediately. Code 17. Failure to do so will result in Sanction 1.’

Then, he flicks the comm off, stretches his shoulders out, and smiles.

Who knows how many of them will do it. Some, a few. It’ll cause a mild stir, if nothing else. Cause confusion. He enjoys the thought of it. He hopes that at least somewhere out there, a troop is retreating to base, leaving the people they are terrorising alone for a brief, shining moment.

‘They’ll be here soon,’ he says to Rey. He find himself quite cheerful. ‘Most of them, I expect.’

She just nods. Her sabre is drawn.

Then he gets to work on the communications console. He has a couple of minutes, he supposes, at the best. It doesn’t take that long to do what he needs to do. These things come easy.

Sure enough, in no time at all there is a barrage of noise outside the door. Blaster fire at it, a shout, a command. He and Rey both shrug it off, turn to face the door. Stand back to back, ready. She is calm and so is he.

He waves the door open with his hand, and a group of startled looking soldiers fall in, almost tumbling.  They immediately open fire, of course, but he and Rey are a match for it. Deflecting blaster fire really isn’t that difficult. Even in a force projection. Perhaps especially in one, since even if something hits, they can’t feel it anyway.

Rey has learned what he’s taught her well. She can slow fire in mid-air, push it away. When they were first learning to train, she could hardly do any of this. He is proud of her. Considering that she’s been trained by the former Supreme Leader, she’s come out all right, as Jedi go.

They have the soldiers unconscious and floored so easily, so neatly.

There are sirens all over the place. He wonders if Hux has issued a command yet, reversing the previous. If so, he’ll only cause more chao and doubt. It’s all to the good. It’s something his father would have done – causing a little bit of madness, a little bit of disorder. Not necessarily to win, not to be the stronger man. Simply because it helps. It gives out a beacon of hope, to let people see that their enemy can be chaotic. It evens the balance, just a little.

He can feel the Hux’s energy. He is a pulsating fury, a dark energy of rage and temper. He is also getting closer.

‘Rey,’ he says. ‘Hux is nearly here.’

She nods. ‘Can sense it,’ she says. ‘He really doesn’t like you.’

Sure enough, he approaches. He is surrounded by a group of some thirty fighters, some of the strongest, the most powerful. Kylo remembers their faces, remembers the way they fought. These are the elite.  They stand behind him and flank him, weapons raised at Kylo and Rey. He moves into the throne room cautiously.

‘Ren.’

Hux’s voice is murderous, a deathly storm rising from within the air. Deadly, and full of power.

‘Kill,’ he says.

And all at once there is a volley of blaster fire, from every angle, covering every inch. He and Rey can halt some of it, but not all. It hits them everywhere, but they are only projecting – it hurts, but not too much, if a bullet grazes them, or a jet of blaster fire gets at their skin. It feels like being flicked by a sudden blast of cold air. They both roll to the ground, duck, push with the Force to form a barrier.

Their energy is so in synch, Kylo can’t tell where he and Rey begins. They are both maintaining this illusion, utterly dependent on each other to survive.

Together, they are so strong. Her light, his dark. They are holding each other fast in this, working as one. All of the training, of their projections into each other’s lives, into each other’s minds. It has created them as a single purpose, a being composed of pure intent.

Their barrier is holding against the fire, but it keeps on coming, a relentless barrage.

 Kylo projects the image of blood onto his clothes, as if he has been hit. The same to Rey, who understand instinctively – of course – and who appears to be bleeding too. A trickle of blood at their feet, she doubles over as if in distress. The barrier wavers, flickers weakly, as if they hurt too much to maintain it. He has to ensure that Hux thinks this is real. He has to be distracted by this.

Kylo winces, as if in pain. He imagines the pain he felt here, in this Throne Room. The way he thought it was making him stronger, thought it was a blessing. In the end, it was nothing except suffering.

He lets himself feel it. His body weakens.

Hux scoffs.

‘Continue fire,’ he says, dismissively. He looks them up and down. He hasn’t moved from his position at the middle of his army. He isn’t interested in coming closer, but nor is he running away.

 _Attack_ , he thinks to Rey.

She does it without a signal; moves her body towards Hux at speed, powering forward, lightsaber in hand. She moves like water; like the Force signature she has always had. Lithe, fluid, strong, amorphous. A great power contained within a gentleness, a misleading kindness. She is brutal.

The fighters throng her; gathering. They swoop at her, Hux in retreat. She is overwhelmed, can hardly fight thirty at once, although she is doing her best, splitting them up, running, parrying, moving them apart, trying to take the fight one by one. The shield around her, projected by Kylo, can’t last long. Her injuries as they appear, are very great. So are his own.

The way it must look, the way it has to look, is that this was a mad, futile attempted takeover, nothing short of a suicide mission.

He gasps, as if hit again. Moves, looks like there is blood pouring out of his side, staggering towards the communication console that he has rigged. Elementary mechanics, something else that Han taught him, once upon a time. How to fix things, but also how to make them blow up.

 _You never know when it’s time to cut loose_ , Han had said once, when Ben had asked him why needed to know a thing like that.

He thinks about Luke, about his dad. Wonders if they’re watching, and if they are, whether or not he’ll get a welcome from them when and if the time comes.

She is still fighting. She is so agile, so capable. Fearless, and even in a projection, she moves with a sense of presence, of purpose. She has taken a few of them down. He watches her. The last Jedi.

One of the last, anyway, he reflects. Perhaps the second to last.

 _I love you_ , he thinks to her. She blinks, surprised. Her expression flickers. Not angry, not unwelcome. Full of feeling, doubt, hope, cautious delight, a partial disbelief that gives way to understanding, to joy.

  _I’m sorry about this_ , he adds.

He slams the door shut with his mind, projects it locked. Snoke taught him that one. If ever there was a man who liked a locked door, it was that bastard.

Then his lightsabre cuts right through the metal of the comms and command box casing. It’s the spark that activates the flame. There is a noise of something burning, sudden smoke. It wouldn’t have lasted long, even without the encouragement. He’d wired it pretty well.

Then an explosion.

His ears ring. The noise is deafening. There are screams, motion around him. Rey, screaming too. Hux, down on the ground. Shrapnel, a breaking apart of everything. His body isn’t there, but whatever it is, whoever he is, he is dying. It hurts too much. He is being torn apart, atom by atom. He isn’t here, and yet he can’t be anywhere else. He can feel this.

The window bursts open.  The vastness of space and the finality of death.

This is death, he think. He can’t feel. Can’t move, everything is gone. His eyes see nothing but white, static, white -

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter to go, woop woop!


	37. The End

He wakes up to see faces staring down at him, looming giant against his vision, the white of the ceiling behind them.

He blinks rapidly, trying to take them in. His eyes swim. He closes them again, to clear them. Tries to feel, with the Force, with anything, what on earth has happened.

Is he real? He was in a projection. He was in the forest. Where is he now? Is this him?  He opens his eyes again.

He sees that Joris, no, Palas is there, leaning in, his expression concerned, alive with feeling. Cousin. Kriff to fuck, cousin. The other man’s face is gentle, warm. He looks relieved, delighted. Compassionate.

 Emma, too, is there. Her hair is severely braided above her head, pulled taut, but her expression is soft, and kind. She doesn’t smile much, but now he thinks, at least, there is a certain quirk of her lip, connoting her pleasure.

There, too, another man – who is he? He knows the face from – from where? Tree, light shafting through the clearing. Noise. Flight. This is Poe, Poe Damaron. 

His head is a blur. How did he get here? Where is he?

The last time he woke up like this, he was on the cold metallic floor of the ship, his mind a blur, the middle of the night, alone, angry. That feels like a lifetime ago now.  This is the same feeling, the same blankness of time, the same confusion, but there’s none of the rage, none of the fear.

Palas is here. His _friend_. Emma, Elith. The people he knows. They are all here.

He is somewhere soft. A bed. There is a ceiling overhead, something from –

The medbay of Palas’s ship, he realises. He’s seen this view before too. He’s onboard the ship. Which means – which means what? He can’t think, can’t process it. It means _something_.

‘Here again, huh,’ Palas says, his voice very soft. ‘Hello Ben.’

‘Yes, _Ben_ ,’ Emma says, although she is warm, teasing. ‘I hear it’s not Olos anymore.’

He blinks again. He feels foggy, distant. But he’s not ill. Not _dead_.

Not dead, he thinks, his mind latching onto the idea. Why is that important? Should I be dead? Am I dead? No, not dead.

There was white, confusion, a mass of space, everywhere. Hux, Rey.

 _Rey._ Fuck.

He reaches out for her with his mind, and he can’t find her. There’s nothing there. Distress bites at him. Where is she?

‘Rey,’ he says, and his voice comes out croaky and unfamiliar.

‘She’s right there,’ Emma says, indicating. He angles his head to look – he can’t sit up yet, can’t seem to manage that. But he can see the bed next to him, dimly, and her face, the shape of her. Her eyes aren’t open, but she’s breathing. He sees her chest rise.

She’s alive.

‘What…’

His voice trails off, as he tries to think of the right questions.  He sees, now he’s regaining some focus, that Emma has a nasty looking gash on the side of her face. What is that? What has happened?

‘Steady there,’ Palas says, his voice light. ‘You seem to have had quite the epic time. Take a deep breath. Do some Jedi breathing, cousin. Isn’t that your forte?’

He, Ben, Kylo, Olos…

 _Ben_.

He, Ben Solo, manages a smile at that, although it takes effort to move any muscle at all.

‘Not really Jedi breathing,’ he says. ‘More… other things.’

‘That’s so cool,’ Elith says, in the background. ‘You’re a Jedi!’

‘Shush,’ Emma says to her, chiding gently.

‘Not really a Jedi,’ he manages to say. ‘Just…’

‘No, just a casual Force user who blows up First Order command ships,’ Joris says cheerfully. ‘From a dirty hole in the forest, astral projecting into space. Nothing Jedi about it.’

‘Where are we?’ he says. He’s feeling like he can regain some mental strength, now. He tries, gingerly to sit up. ‘What’s wrong with Rey?’

‘You were both unconscious,’ Emma says. She sits down on one of the chairs at the side of Kylo’s bed, and Palas and Poe do the same. Poe’s eyes are mostly fixed on Rey – he stands close to her bedside, watching her. Next to him is someone else Ben vaguely recognises, an older man. Someone who had been in the forest with Poe, the one who had been most hostile.

So they got out, he thinks, still not making the right connections, his brain still reaching for something that he is sure is important – if only he could find it. They are here, on the ship, Poe and the others.

Which means –

Kriff but he’s foggy. What does it mean?

He tries to parse it, but it’s not coming. All he can see, suddenly, is white – everything breaking apart, himself, everything. What happened?

‘I don’t –‘ he says, suddenly feeling extremely dizzy. He closes his eyes just for a moment. Everything fades to black.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

 

 

 

When he wakes up, he thinks that he is alone. It is certainly quieter – no faces looming, nothing there except the steady noise of a ship coolant fan, a dim light in the corner. He breathes in.

He feels clearer, now. He is certain he is in the medbay of the ship of his cousin, Palas from Coruscant, Palas. He was, previously, in the command ship of the First Order, firstly as a dead body and secondly as someone who rigged a communicator to explode, and who subsequently exploded it with General Hux and his fighters in the room.

Yes, he feels quite clear.

He is Ben Solo. His mother, Leia, is in hiding, with the remnants of the Resistance.

He breathes in Light, and it comes so naturally it might as well be his birth right. Of course he breathes in Light. With his uncle being Luke Skywalker, what else would he ever have wanted to do? The thought makes him smile, just a little. It isn’t without pain, without regret. But he can understand now, in some fundamental way, that it’s _better_ to

What on earth has he been doing, he thinks? All these years, what was he doing?

‘Cute smile,’ someone says, and he startles. Turns to the voice.

There, approaching, is Rey.

His heart flips. At least, he thinks that is what it is – he hasn’t ever had this feeling before, not that he can remember. It’s a big feeling, something impossibly large, its limits undefinable, its scope without end.

She looks _alive_ , and awake. She is walking. Her hair is loose, hanging down around her shoulders, and her smile – in return to his – is very bright.

‘Hello,’ she says, and her voice – not in a Force projection, but here, now, and real, can be presumed to be one of the softest and most beautiful sounds in the galaxy. Not that he knows too much about it. He hasn’t seen anywhere near enough of the galaxy to judge. He can only _guess_ that Rey is one of the best things in it.

On the other hand, he is somewhat of a Jedi these days. His guesses are usually accurate.

‘Hello,’ he says back. His voice isn’t as croaky as before. He feels thirsty, a little weak, but certainly not confused, not incapacitated.

She bounds over to him. Kisses him, hard. Lets her hand rest on his chest, sits beside him. She keeps her hand over him, warm, together. The Force radiates around them both, Light, calm, a great strength.

‘If you ever plan to blow me up again,’ she says, ‘I’d prefer some advanced warning.’

He manages to a quirk a rather awkward smile.

‘Sorry.’

‘Well,’ she says. ‘It was only in a projection.’

‘Still. I didn’t know if we’d –‘

‘I know,’ she says. Her hand moves to stroke his shoulder, reassuring him or herself he doesn’t know. ‘I understood what might happen. You didn’t need to say. I understood.’

‘I know.’

They don’t say anything after that, for a little while. She just sits with him, her hand grazing his hair, tousling it, until she takes his own hand hers and holds tight.

‘Your friends have quite the story,’ she says, after a while. ‘About how they found us. Apparently, they refused to leave the forest without looking for us. There was some kind of mutiny. Your friend Emma wielded a blaster, by all accounts, said she’d kill anyone who didn’t join the search. She and Poe seem to get on pretty well.’

Ben shakes his head.

‘They hardly know me. Why would they…’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Rey says. Her tone is soft, light. ‘They’re your friends. They told me what you did. Out on Yadrin, out in those fields. What it was like. What you were like.’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t like they told it,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t that dramatic.’

She grins.

‘Sounds quite dramatic, to be honest. Give or take the boredom of farming. Anyway.’ She gives another smile. ‘We were both lying flat in that ditch, as they described it. They only found us by luck. The little one, what’s her name – Ellie? Elth?’

‘Elith.’

‘Elith, right. She tripped, landed right on top of us. It must have been incredibly dark. They’d never have found us otherwise.’

‘She’s Force sensitive,’ Ben says, thinking carefully. ‘Elith, I mean. I hadn’t really thought about it, but… I think. I’m sure it was the Force that led her there, to us.’

She nods.

 ‘They carried us on board,’ Rey says. ‘Didn’t know if we’d ever wake up, but they weren’t leaving us behind.’

‘They all got out,’ Ben says, wonderous. ‘They all made it.’

‘We were lucky,’ Rey concedes. ‘If you hadn’t given Poe that bracelet, I don’t think any of this would have held together. He managed to make contact with Joris –‘

‘Palas,’ Ben interrupts. ‘That’s his real name. He’s actually my cousin. As it turns out. From Alderaan.’

Rey snorts.

‘He mentioned it. Once or twice. Told me that I’ve broken the hearts of at least seventeen nobles, although he didn't say why. Anyway, _Palas_   and Poe got in contact. You’ve been asleep for the last three hours that I’ve been awake. He mentioned it quite a few times.’

‘It was swarming with First Order troops in the forest,’ Ben says. ‘I didn’t know if they’d make it. Poe and the rest. I didn’t really know.’

He reflects.

‘I’m really glad they did.’

‘You told them all to go back to base,’ Rey says, grinning. ‘All the First Order. And at least some of them followed. The ones on the ground in the forest included. They must have been so spooked by hearing your voice, after having seen you dead. Apparently they just turned tail, got out. One minute they were giving chase, and Poe thought they were done for. The next, they were all backing out and away.’

She gives a fragile smile.

‘You saved their lives. For someone who isn’t in the Resistance, you seem to be doing a lot of that lately.’

‘I’m not –‘

‘I know,’ she says. She moves close to him, and kisses him. ‘I know now. I think I understand.’

‘Is Hux dead?’

Rey shrugs. ‘You blew a hole in the room he was in. It shattered out into space and you’d locked the door. He’s definitely dead. Along with all the rest. Apparently the command ship emergency landed, but they weren’t in much condition when they got there. The First Order’s in chaos.’

‘Ah.’ He processes his thoughts about this, which are rapid and tangled. ‘I don’t think I want to kill anyone else,’ he says finally. It’s a relief to say it. ‘I think I might be done with that.’

‘Okay,’ Rey says. She grins. ‘I can see the argument for it.’

He sits up, and finds that he feels perfectly well, enough so that he moves to stand. His legs are a little shaky, but nothing he can’t handle. It feels good to move. He’s been asleep for a long time.

Together, they walk towards the bridge. Ben can feel Palas’s energy, radiant and clear. They are travelling, swirling the galaxy, with no destination in mind. It is, Rey says, too dangerous for them to land on Restharna, to unite the Resistance. Joris’s ship is almost certainly being tracked, after its suspicious landing and behaviour. They can’t land anywhere that might lead to Leia, not yet at least. Not for a while, until they can move to another vessel.

So for now, they are sky-toeing the outer rim, weaving a path to nowhere.

He pushes open the bridge door, and his heart feels as light as ever has been. There, lounging on the command chair, is Palas – and at his side, Poe, who appears to be feverishly explaining the control system.

The two of them make a pretty pair. Ben wonders. He sees them, and he wonders – about the impossibility of normal things, about the ways in which the universe connects these people together, and his part in the chain of those connections. They way they are smiling at each other –

For now, at least, he’s content to wonder. He’s got the rest of his life, he supposes, to know the rest of the story.

‘Hey,’ Poe says, seeing them. He gives Rey a broad and hearty smile. Raises his hand to Ben. ‘Hey Ben Solo. I’ve been hearing that for all your pedigree, you don’t know how to land a shuttle. What’s that about? Need me to show you where the break is?’

Ben snorts.

‘I think I’m good.’

He turns to Palas, and tries, hesitantly, a line in what he hopes is passable Alderaani, or at least _comprehensible as an attempt._ He's really tried to remember this one. 

‘Good to see you,’ he says.

Palas’s face lights up.

‘Hey,’ he says. ‘The grammar was right in that and everything! Prince Ben.’ He switches himself, and Ben can clearly hear that his cousin is fluent, and enjoys the language as his first – he sounds more relaxed in it, more entirely at ease and entirely himself. ‘Some day you’ll be able to talk to me in words of more than one syllable, I suppose.’

‘Prince?’ Rey repeats, turning to him.

 ‘You did know your boyfriend’s a prince, right?’ Palas says. Poe laughs. ‘Not a very good one, not a very _present_ one. In fact, one who’s been presumed dead for more than a decade. And, I must say, one who doesn’t have a planet _as such_ , since it was blown up. We totally give him up as a lost cause.’

‘Still,’ he adds, to Ben. ‘You might be back in the game. We’re going to have to go to New Alderaan and do some diplomacy. If nothing else, my mother’s got intentions to set me up. I can only outrun her so long.’

Ben flushes slightly. ‘I hadn’t mentioned that part yet. About my being a prince.’

But Rey only laughs. ‘Tell me more about it later. Are we ever going to land? Surely there’s some dust heap nearby where we can dock?’

‘New Alderaan’s not that far,’ Palas says. ‘and I know all the best ways to land there without detection. It’s practically my home.’

‘I’m going to pilot though,’ Poe says, and he sounds extremely excited. ‘Palas is rubbish at it.’

 

+

 

Which is how it happens, at the end of this story, that Ben Solo, Palas Obdurian and Rey, whose second name is another story, find themselves in deep space, flying towards New Alderaan, with Palas nervously fidgeting with his cuffs, for all the world like a hesitant bridegroom.  
  
Ben and Rey are ignoring him, too deep in their own happiness. Neither of them have said it, but they both know that this is it.

For as long as they’re alive, it’s going to be their business to be together. They hold the Force in balance. They aren’t alone in it – far from it. They’re just two Jedi, in a world that’s full of possibilities. Wherever there is the Force, there is always going to be the two of them, nurturing it, holding it. The rest is so small, compared to their infinity.

The First Order are still out there. Not defeated, not gone. Damaged, uncertain. But not gone, never that. Rey is still a Resistance fighter. Ben is still not.

He’s still Kylo Ren, too. In some way, in some form. He’ll always be more than one thing, and he supposes he’ll just have to learn to live with that.

Every day, any day, a Force user can be born. Darkness, Light. There’s no stopping it.

For now though, they are here, circling in outer space, warm, safe. Alive and together.

‘What do princes do?’ Rey asks, and Ben just smiles.

‘The same stuff as ordinary rich people, I guess.’

‘Au contraire,’ Palas says. ‘They do far more socialising.’

‘Oh no,’ Ben says.

‘Your Alderaani’s appalling,’ Palas concedes. ‘The first time you tried it, you called me a grapefruit.’

Rey laughs, and Ben scowls.

‘Did I really?’

‘Yeah. I think you meant _kind_. It’s aardigth, not ardig. They sound completely different.’

 ‘You know,’ Rey says, and he can feel her caution. ‘There might be a woman who could help you learn. She’s on comms with us, we’ve got a secure line.’

He isn’t ready for that, but on the other hand, when will he ever be ready? He takes in Rey’s kind, knowing face. Her openness to him, her absolute love. He can feel it, radiating across her. From Palas, too, he can feel the same.

He belongs here with these people.

 He still _exists_ , he realises, as Ben Solo. He always did. There’s just one vital connection left to make. None of this can work without it – Alderaan, Palas, Rey. They are bound within another, older connection.

With a simple word to his friends, he leaves them. He goes to the communications bay. He wants to be alone for this.

He still knows her private code, the communication channel she’s always been on. He learned that number before he learned any other. It was the one he was taught to call when there was something that scared him.

Now, it’s the number itself that scares him. He types it in with shaking hands and waits for her to answer. He’s seen her, they’ve bridged some sort of gap – but it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough, not really. All he can do is try.

There is a connective bleep.

On screen, his mother flashes up, her face far more beautiful than he remembers it. She is in the space below the bar, safe, alive. Haggard, tired. Cut diamond. A princess herself, a leader. The person who made him.

 She sees him, and her jaw drops. She is utterly, heart-breakingly silent.

 ‘Hi,’ he says.

His mother’s face is alive with shock, grief, and what he now knows is almost certainly love. She reaches out to him, and he stretches a cautious hand back to the screen. He gives her an awkward half-smile.

‘We got out. We’re all fine. But I was just wondering if you might be able to teach me some Alderaani. I think I’m going to need it.’

 

**FIN**

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 Thank you all for reading and enjoying and being with me in this story, which began as something very small and took on, step by step, a whole new life. I've loved writing it.


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